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THE WAYFARER 

IN 

NEW YORK 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON ■ CHICAGO 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



2 4 8 216 



THE WAYFARER 



IN 



NEW YORK 



INTRODUCTION BY 

EDWARD S. MARTIN 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1909 

A a rights reserved 






Copyright, 1909, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1909. 



NorJnooli i^reas 

J. 8. Cashing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



» TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction Edwards. Martin xi 

From the Log of Robert Juet . Purchas His Pilgrimes i 



FROM THE BATTERY TO TRINITY 

The Price of Manhattan Mrs. Schiiyler Van Rensselaer 5 
The First Account of New York Printed in the English 

Language ...... Daniel Detiton 6 

Boy wanted, 1658 J. Alrichs 7 

A Schoolmaster's Duties, 1661 . Adriaen Hegeman, Secy. 9 

"Why the Dutch Surrendered . The West India Company 10 

New York in 1679 . . J. Bankers and P. Sluyter ii 

When New York was Like a Garden, 1748 Peter Kalm 14 



New-York in 1760 . 

A Mass Meeting in 1794 . 

Fashions in New York in 1 797 . 

An Old New York Salon . 

The Battery in 1804 . 

As seen by Mrs. Trollope in 1831 

As Dickens saw the City in 1842 

The March of the Seventh Regiment down Broadway, 1861 

Theodore Winthrop 42 
The Great Panic of 1873 . . . . H. C. Bunner 43 
The Two Cities .... Thomas B. Aldrich 45 

The Aquarium and the Docks . . John C. Van Dyke 46 



Andrew Burnaby 16 

Grant Thar burn 20 

. P. Huntington 23 

Gertrude Atherton 26 

Washington Irving 30 

Mrs. T. A. Trollope 33 

. Charles Dicketis 39 



Table of Contents 





PAGE 


Liberty Enlightening the World 


Edmund C. Stedinan 


56 


From the Deck of the Cunarder 


. G. W. Steevens 


58 


Ellis Island .... 


Edward A. Steiner 


59 


The Financial Centre of America 


James Bryce 


63 


Pan in Wall Street . 


Edmund C. Stedmati 


65 


New York in a Fog . 


Arthur Stringer 


68 


The Red Box at Vesey Street . 


H. C. Bunner 


71 


The Exchanges 


John C. Van Dyke 


72 


Old Trinity Churchyard . 


. John F. Mines 


75 


In Old Trinity .... 


Mabel Osgood Wright 


77 



II 



WITHIN HALF A MILE OF CITY HALL 

New York's Greatest Pageant . William Alexander Duer 
Spring in Town . . . William Cullen Bryant 

As a Young Reporter Sees New York Jesse Lynch Williams 
The Poets of Printing House Square Albert Bigelow Paine 
A Broadway Pageant .... Walt Whitman 



The Tombs 

In City Hall Park . 

A New York City Character 

The Bowery 

The Great Man of the Quarter 

Chinatown 



. George A. Sala 

Mary Edith Biihler 

The New York Sun 

John C. Van Dyke 

Norman Duncan 



81 

84 

85 
88 

89 
90 

95 
96 

I(X» 

102 



Rupert Hughes 103 



III 



GREENWICH AND CHELSEA VILLAGES 

Lispenard's Meadow . . . John Randel, Jr. 

The Plague which built Greenwich, 1822 H. C. Bunner 
A Song of Bedford Street . . . . H. C. Bunner 
The Fourteenth Street Theater Mabel Osgood Wright 

Greenwich and Chelsea . . . John C. Van Dyke 
vi 



107 
108 
112 
"3 
115 



Table of Contents 



IV 



THE WASHINGTON SQUARE NEIGHBORHOOD 

PAGE 

Grace Church Garden . . . Frances A. Schneider 121 

The Brasserie Pigault . . . . H. C. Bunner 121 

The Astor Place Opera House Riot Contemporary Pamphlet 126 

The Beginning of the End of Lafayette Place Edgar Fawcett 129 

The Bread Line . . . Albert Bigelow Paine 130 

Washington Square Henry /ames 134 

Another View of Washington Square Theodore Winthrop 136 



THE EAST SIDE 



A Spring Walk 
An East Side Wedding Feast 
Cat Alley .... 
An East Side Music Hall . 
Mulberry Bend 



My Vacation on the East Side " 



F. Marion Crawford 139 

. James L. Ford 142 

Jacob A. Pits 145 

. Stephen Crane 149 

Jacob A. Riis 154 

Bernard G. Richards 156 



VI 



FROM UNION SQUARE TO MADISON SQUARE 



Onthe«Rialto" 

The Art and Nature Club 

Mannahatta 

A Philistine in Bohemia 

At the Old Bull's Head 



. Harvey J. O^Higgins 163 

Mabel Osgood Wright 165 

. Walt Whitman 169 

. O. Henry 170 

. C. C. Buel 175 



Table of Contents 



PAGE 



The Social Map . . . , F. Marion Crazvford 177 

To the P'arragut Statue .... Robert Bridges 1 78 
Madison Square Garden .... Rupert Hughes 179 
A Song of City Traffic . . Charles Hanson Toivne 181 
A Bird's Eye View from the Waldorf . G. IV. Steevens 183 



VII 

FROM MADISON SQUARE THROUGH 
CENTRAL PARK 

The Architecture of New York . William Archer 189 

The Tenderloin .... John C. Van Dyke 192 

When the Owls First Blinked Election News 

The New York Herald 193 
Three Days of Terror, 1863 . . . Ellett Leonard 195 
The Little Church Round the Corner . A. E. Lancaster 200 
The Path of In-the-Spring .... Zona Gale 201 
Columbia at the Outbreak of the Civil War Charles King 202 
New York Clubs Rupert Hughes 205 



VIII 

UPPER MANHATTAN AND HARLEM 

Riverside Drive and Morningside Heights Rupert Hughes 213 
The Founding of Harlem . . . Carl Horton Pierce 21^ 

Manhattan Richard Hovey 217 

Columbia University on Morningside Harry Thurston Peck 218 
General George CUnton to Dr. Peter Tappen . . . 221 
The Great Game at the Polo Grounds New York Sun 224 

The Old Jumel Mansion . . . Charles Burr Todd 226 
The Clermont on the Hudson . . . Clifton Johnson 227 
viii 



Table of Contents 

IX 

THE BRONX AND BEYOND 

PAGE 

Where the People of New York Live . G. W. Steevens 231 
Spuyten Duyvel and King's Bridge . T. Addison Richards 234 
A Day at Laguerre's . . . F. Hopkinson Smith 236 

The New York Zoological Park William T. Hornaday 240 
The Bowery Boy as Nurse in Westchester E. VV. Tozvnsend 24 1 
Their Wedding Journey — 1834 . . H. C. Bunner 2^2> 



OVER THE WATER 

The Bridges and Blackwell's Island . John C. Van Dyke 247 
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry .... Walt Whitman 251 

Flushing Jesse L. Willia?ns 254 

The City of Homes Anonymous 255 

Coney Island Rupert Hughes 256 

Staten Island T. Addison Richards 261 

Hoboken, 1831 .... Mrs. T. A. Trollope 263 
Greenpoint Edgar Fawcett 265 



INTRODUCTION 

NEW YORK is a frontier city situated about half- 
way between San Francisco and London. It has 
a population of about four millions and a half, and gains 
about a hundred thousand a year. A very large propor- 
tion of its population are newcomers, who pour in both by 
sea and by land. Most of those who come on the land side 
are Americans who know the language, customs and some 
of the laws of the country. Those who come by sea — 
a great and continuous stream — know as a rule neither 
our language, laws nor habits, and it is one of the steady 
occupations and duties of New York to teach them. 

New York's four millions include a select but respectable 
company of persons who were born in New York of native- 
American parents, a squad, probably larger, of persons 
American born of American-born parents who came to 
New York when more or less grown up, another considerable 
group of the American -born descendants of foreign-born 
parents, and a large company of the foreign born. 

New York is hardly a first-rate place to be born in. It 
is too crowded, it costs too much to be born there, and in 
spite of considerable effort and expenditure, the city has 
not been able to adjust itself more than imperfectly to the 
needs of infancy. A hundred and twenty-five thousand 
babies, more or less, take the chances of being born in New 
York every year, and a vast deal is done to make them 
welcome and encourage them to keep on. And a wonderful 



Introduction 

proportion of them do keep on. Nevertheless, New York is 
not very highly recommended as a birthplace. It is very 
successful and attractive, however, as a place for persons 
to come to who have been born, and have more or less grown 
up, somewhere else. And if they have been educated some- 
where else, and have learned to do something pretty well, 
s6 much the better for their chances as residents of New 
York. 

There are better places to live in than New York, and 
that in spite of its excellent climate and remarkable health- 
fulness considering its size. But there is hardly any better 
place to work in, provided one has learned to work to good 
purpose, and can learn to maintain continuous good health 
under the nervous strain of New York life. To do that 
is an art in itself, but many people learn it, and practise it 
successfully by methods that vary according to their em- 
ployments and incomes. The city is very stimulating. Its 
atmosphere is highly charged with activity. Solitude, 
which has considerable healing power provided one does 
not take too much of it, is hard to come by there. Op- 
portunity abounds: there is an enormous amount to be 
done and droves of people doing it. All of that makes 
for a quickened pace of mind and limb, and is tiring, 
especially to the nerves. Accordingly almost everybody 
who works in New York gets more tired in the course of 
the year than is good for him, and needs periods of rest 
and change of air. 

Getting them — getting rest and change — is one of 
the steady employments of the city. It sends shoals of 
people to Florida, California, Atlantic City, Lakewood and 
such places in the spring, and to Europe at all times, but 
especially in the summer; it fills the country for fifty miles 
xii 



Introduction 

around New York with the families of people who work 
in that city and go home at night; it accomplishes an 
extraordinary summer migration of rich and poor, and fills 
street cars, parks, recreation-piers, bathing beaches, steam- 
boats and places of amusement with people who cannot get 
away. Most of New York's population cannot get away, 
or not for long at any rate. A great many people, especially 
children, get a week or two out of town in the summer, 
but there is no time when the city will not be found to be 
seething with human creatures and humming with work, 
if one looks for them in the right places. When Fifth 
Avenue grows languid late in August and the shades are 
down or the shutters up in whole blocks of the houses of 
the well-to-do, building, street mending and many kinds 
of business are at their liveliest, the factories are humming 
down-town, the usual crowd surges in from the ferries and 
the tunnels in the morning and out again at night, the 
trains and cars run almost as full as usual on surface, 
subway and elevated roads, and down-town and up-town 
the tenement house blocks and the streets they stand on 
seem just as full of people as ever. 

It is a great credit to Manhattan Island that so many 
people dwell on it, and so much too continuously, and still 
live and reasonably prosper. The truth is the narrow 
island was well contrived to be the home of man. The 
breezes sweep across it from river to river. It is well 
drained by nature and now well watered by man's art. 
And its climate, as has been said, is very good. When 
New York was a little city gathered about the Battery and 
the Bowling Green and Wall and Broad streets, and lower 
Broadway, it must have been a truly charming place to 
live in. There are no sites of dwellings now that are as 
xiii 



Introduction 

desirable as those on the borders of the Battery Park where 
still stand a few of the fine old dwellings that housed the 
more opulent citizens of the time when General Washing- 
ton was President. Everything and everybody was within 
walking distance then, except when folks took horse or 
wagon or boat to go to their country seats farther up the 
island. That was a ''little, old New York" that was 
really little, and really old, and which must have been 
really delightful, even to a contemplative mind. 

It's littleness is past, and thanks to its habit of tearing 
down to rebuild, the best part of it is not as old as it was 
a century ago; but it is still delightful; only now it is 
wonderful rather than charming, a marvelous city that 
people's eyes pop out over; that changes and develops and 
shoots up and stretches out so fast that habitual residents 
find new marvels for their own eyes every time they show 
the town to a visitor, and visitors who come not more than 
twice a year find unfamiliar new features at every visit. 
But their presence and their reiterating visits attest that 
the changeful city is delightful. As one of its employments 
is getting rest and change, so another of them is giving 
those desirables to folks who live elsewhere. And that 
is an enormous industry in New York. Two hundred 
thousand visitors a day it was believed to have the last 
time there were printed figures on that topic. They come 
most in the fall and in the spring and least no doubt in 
midsummer, but there is no season when they are not 
present in force, getting tired or rested, stimulated, en- 
tertained, fed, warmed or cooled according to their needs. 

New York is the metropolis of a jealous and disparaging 
country that seldom has anything very good to say of it. 
Practically the country seems to take pleasure in it; 
xiv 



Introduction 

reads about it continually — for it is the greatest contribu- 
tor of news to the papers; visits it when it can and enjoys 
the visits; is amused with its shows and interested in its 
hotels, shops, parks, streets, tall buildings, rivers, bridges, 
slums, tunnels and people. It pays it a constant tribute 
of attention and spends money in it according to its means, 
but it seldom shows pride in it, or speaks any better of it 
than it can help. Perhaps when Kansas goes to Europe 
(as it does abundantly) it brags a little about New York 
as an American product, and the greatest-city-to-be in 
all the world. Perhaps, in Europe, Kansas declares that 
Fifth Avenue is a street to make the old world wipe its 
glasses, and that the rivers of New York surpass all rivers 
in their combination of natural beauties and man-made 
wonders; and that the buildings of New York are more 
marvelous, at least, than any modern buildings in Europe. 
But at home Kansas is apt to see in New York a greedy 
city, wrapped up in itself, incredulous of Western wisdom, 
inhospitable to ''broad American ideas," perched on the 
shore of the Atlantic Ocean and careless of the great land 
behind it except as a vast productive area from which it 
draws endless wealth. New York is merely one of the 
fruits of that great tree whose roots go down in the Missis- 
sippi Valley, and whose branches spread from one ocean to 
the other, but the tree has no great degree of affection for 
its fruit. It inclines to think that the big apple gets a dis- 
proportionate share of the national sap. It is disturbed by 
the enormous drawing power of a metropolis which con- 
stantly attracts to itself wealth and its possessors from all 
the lesser centers of the land. Every city, every State pays 
an annual tribute of men and of business to New York 
and no State or city likes particularly to do it. All cities 

XV 



Introduction 

profit in these times by the strong tendency toward in- 
dustrial centrahzation, but New York most of all. It is 
the headquarters of the great businesses of the country, 
of the banking business, the railroad business, the insurance 
business, and of countless huge and powerful industrial 
corporations whose affairs reach out into the farthest 
corners of the land. In New York the masters of these 
great enterprises must live a good part of the year, and they 
build great houses there, and set up country-places where 
their children can have a chance to grow up, and of course 
their ties with their home States or the cities they came 
from become more and more loosened as the years go on. 

No wonder, then, the country inclines to be jealous of a 
New York that seems to be all the time drawing from it, 
and never giving much. But so all great cities grow, and 
could not be, without these processes. 

New York is different from all the other American cities 
in the quality of its hospitalities, and in that there is a basis 
for the lack of warmth in the neighbors' attitude toward 
it. In one way it is the most hospitable of all our cities 
because it welcomes and entertains and provides for in- 
comparably more visitors than any other. But its hos- 
pitalities are, in the main, the concern of the hotels, the 
theaters, the restaurants and the shops. The people of 
the city are perhaps a little harder to get at in their homes 
than the people of the lesser cities. A vast number of 
people who do not live in New York have friends, ac- 
quaintances or relatives in that city. When Brown, who 
lives in Buffalo, comes to New York, his case is somewhat 
different from that of Jones, who lives in New York, when 
Jones goes to Buffalo. Brown and Jones being old friends, 
Jones sees Brown in Buffalo as a matter of course, and 



Introduction 

Brown offers him the hospitalities of that city. It wouldn't 
be Buffalo to Jones if he didn't see Brown. But it is not 
quite so much a matter of course that Brown will see Jones 
when he comes to New York. For one thing, Brown comes 
to New York ten times for once that Jones goes to Buffalo, 
so that Jones' visit to Buffalo is much more of an event both 
to Jones and Brown than Brown's visit to New York is 
to either of them. For another thing it is about five times 
easier for Jones to catch Brown in Buffalo than it is for 
Brown to catch Jones in New York. Jones' place of 
business in New York is five miles from his house, and 
three or four miles from the hotels and shops where Brown 
may be putting in most of his time. If Brown is really 
set on seeing Jones he must write to him beforehand or 
trust to catching him by telephone and making an appoint- 
ment to meet him somewhere, or lunch with him, or come 
to dinner. But when Brown comes to New York he comes 
usually for no more than a day or two, and has lots to do, 
and is in a hurry. He won't take all this trouble to run 
Jones down just for a casual exchange of friendly talk. 
He doesn't want to dine with Jones and his family; he 
wants to go to the theater. It is a waste of time for Brown 
to give up a whole evening to a domestic dinner when the 
theaters are so attractive and time so limited. So Brown 
is apt to go his own gait in New York and let Jones go 
uninterviewed, unless he happens to run across him, or 
wants to see him for a reason. That happens so often, 
and to so many people, that the impression gets about that 
people who go to live in New York are pretty much lost 
to the world outside of that city, and that the less that is 
expected of them in the way of personal attentions, the 
less the chance of disappointment. 
xvii 



Introduction 

That is not quite a just impression. Not the people who 
live in New York are to blame for it, but the condition of 
life in that city, both for residents and visitors. In New 
York people have to live more by schedule than in most 
smaller places. In order to accomplish what they have 
to do they must plan out the disposition of their time more 
carefully than if they lived where distances were shorter, 
where a less fraction of the day had to be spent in going and 
coming and where the residue of available time was larger. 
Existence in New York is not very conducive to friendship. 
That is a sad admission. Propinquity and leisure are 
favorable to friendship, but both are somewhat to seek in 
New York. Of course friendship can thrive in spite of 
obstacles, and does there, but New York is more favorable 
to the acquisitions of a wide, agreeable and stimulating 
acquaintance, than to intimacies. The necessary con- 
servation of energy promptly constrains people who under- 
take to live and work in New York to stick pretty close to 
a daily routine. At such an hour in the morning the 
working citizen emerges from his front door or the elevator 
of his apartment-house; so far he walks, maybe (unless 
it rains) for his health's good; at such a corner he takes 
the subway, the elevated, a surface car or a cab; at such 
an hour he goes to lunch; at such an hour he stops work 
and goes home, or to a club, or to walk, or drive or ride ; or 
to do what his wife has arranged. He dines, at home or 
elsewhere ; he stays at home or goes out, and in due time, 
or thereabouts, he goes to bed. Some such beat as that 
he travels every day, seeing the people who happen to be 
on that beat and missing the others. Habit makes it 
easy for him to travel on that beat. To diverge far from 
it takes extra thought and involves extra exertion, so he is 
xviii 



Introduction 

chary of divergences. Such habits of life and the dis- 
positions that naturally follow from them are doubtless 
responsible for the reputation for self-engrossment and 
inattention to the rest of the country under which New 
York seems to labor. The truth is that the people of that 
city are remarkably like other people (a large proportion 
of them being "other people" by birth and early training), 
but the conditions under which they live are appreciably 
different from the conditions of life anywhere else in the 
United States. If they are less stirred than they should be 
by new faces, it is because a whole panorama of new faces 
unrolls to them every day. They are driven in upon them- 
selves by the incessant impact of people. They go their 
own gait because the very pressure of the crowd constrains 
them to it. Even grown-up members of the same family 
are apt to be a little more separate in New York than they 
would be elsewhere, unless they all live at home or very 
near one another. That does not mean lapse of affection, 
but only that life is pressing. In placid back waters boats 
may drift along together, but when there is a rapid current 
to stem each must be concerned to make headway on its 
course. 

As for the physical, the historical and the ethnological 
New York, there is great individuality about each of them. 
Physically the town seems remarkably constituted to stim- 
ulate the mind, the imagination and hands of man to 
exceptional exertions. The situation of Manhattan Island 
between the rivers has compelled extraordinary feats of 
bridge-building and tunnel-boring, and the narrowness 
of the island and the driving propensity of business to run 
northerly up the middle of it, has made certain strips of 
land excessively valuable, and spurred invention to cover 



Introduction 

them with buildings of a height and earning power pro- 
portionate to the value of their sites. The physical New 
York is not what it is because anybody thought that was 
an ideal way to build a city, but because there were only 
two directions which certain lines of business were willing 
to take, one being toward the Harlem River, the other 
toward the sky. 

The peculiar physical development of the city has been 
hard on its historical and sentimental side because the 
line of the best new building has run up Broadway and 
Fifth Avenue directly on top of the best building of the 
preceding generation. That has meant an amount of 
premature demolition unusual even in the history of great 
cities. The pulling down of dilapidated buildings to make 
way for better ones is a familiar process of growth, but New 
York has seen the palaces of one generation leveled to 
make space for the shops, hotels and apartment houses 
of the next. Very often, indeed, there has not been a genera- 
tion's lapse, or nearly so long, between the rise of successive 
structures on the same site. That is why one must go off 
the beaten track to find buildings in New York that have 
associations with an earlier day. Faunce's Tavern, Trinity 
and St. Paul's churches, the City Hall, and a few other 
buildings have been saved by the influence of pious 
memories, but almost all Broadway is fairly new, and 
on Fifth Avenue above Fourteenth Street there is hardly a 
building left as it was twenty-five years ago, and many of 
them have not yet reached the maturity of a single decade. 
The New York that is most on exhibition is almost as new 
as Seattle. On lower Fifth Avenue and the streets that 
run out of it below Fourteenth Street there are good old 
houses left to uses hardly less dignified than those for which 



Introduction 

they were first built. Fashion has left that quarter behind, 
but a high degree of respectability has moved into its 
vacant tenements. Washington Square is still much like 
its old self, though the University Building — the most senti- 
mentally flavored New York edifice of its day — is gone. 
Gramercy Park still keeps much of its old quality, and 
so, but in a much less degree, does the more remote Stuy- 
vesant Square. But the Fifth Avenue blocks of the 'teens 
and the Twenties and Thirties are already utterly changed, 
or changing very fast, and the Forties are wavering and 
the Fifties are challenged. There is a residential fortress 
on Madison Avenue, at Thirty-eighth Street, and that 
avenue generally has suffered less intrusion, and Park 
Avenue between Thirty-fourth and Fortieth streets holds 
out handsomely against commerce, and there are strong- 
holds on Fifth Avenue as far down as the top Forties that 
still defy it, but when Trade fixes its eye on any site or 
any locality, it seems only a matter of time when it shall 
get what it wants. Opposition dies and goes to Woodlawn, 
but Trade lives on and accumulates appetite. 

But these observations of locality seem rather beside the 
mark. The important thing about New York is not how 
much is old or new, nor where the people who may choose, 
choose now to live. The important thing is what the city 
does to men. Perhaps its best exhibit is its schools. They 
are very many, very big and handsome, and a vast deal 
of teaching is done in them. Ethnologically, as every one 
knows. New York is a museum. An important fraction 
of the annual immigration that lands at Ellis Island clings 
to New York and gets no farther. Therein lies her title 
to be called a frontier city, and she lives earnestly up to the 
responsibilities of it by giving her newcomers their first 



Introduction 

lessons in American deportment and putting their children 
to school. 

As to its more general effect, to people who profit by 
living there New York seems to give valuable qualities 
of confidence. To get hold in New York, and win a rec- 
ognized place there, is an exploit of considerable value 
and is recognized to be so. Whether it is reasonable or 
not, and in many particulars it is not, there is a prestige 
about a great metropolis which is communicated to the 
people who live in it. To ride a tall horse does not make 
a man great, but it may make him look great and even 
feel great. New York is a very tall horse, and many who 
ride her look bigger and feel bigger for that exploit. 

Moreover the really big people in New York are pretty 
big; much bigger, oftentimes, than an incredulous country 
understands. Competition is the life of certain kinds of 
brains, as it is of trade, and the competitions of New York 
yield many trained men of power and rare efficiency. 
Diamonds are polished with diamond powder, and men 
with men. There are plenty of men in New York for all 
the processes of polishing, and when the work has been 
finished in a good specimen the result is very brilliant, and 
the product, undeniably, is fit for uses of profound im- 
portance. 

Edward S. Martin 



xxii 



Why do I love New York, my dear? 

I know not. Were my father here — 
And his — and HIS — the three and I 
Might, perhaps, make you some reply. 

H. C. BUNNER 
Copyright, by Charles Scribner's Sons, i8g2. 



THE WAYFARER IN 
NEW YORK 

In the year of Christ 1609 was the country of which we now 
propose to speak first founded and discovered at the expense 
of the General East India Company (though directing their 
aims and desires elsewhere) by the ship HALF MOON 
whereof Henry Hudson was master and factor. — Remonstrance 
of New Netherland. 

npHEN the Sunne arose, and we steered away north 
-*- againe, and saw the land from the West by North, 
to the Northwest by North, all like broken Hands, and 
our soundings were eleven and ten fathoms. Then wee 
looft in for the shoare, and faire by the shoare, we had 
seven fathoms. The course along the land we found to be 
North-east by North. From the land which we had first 
sight of, until we came to a great lake of water, as wee 
could judge it to bee, being drowned land, which made it 
to rise like Hands, which was in length ten leagues. The 
mouth of that lake hath many shoalds, and the sea break- 
eth on them as it is cast out of the mouth of it. And 
from that Lake or Bay, the land lyeth North by East, and 
wee had a great streame out of the Bay ; and from thence 
our sounding was ten fathoms, two leagues from the land. 
At five of the clocke we anchored, being little winde, and 
rode in eight fathoms water, the night was faire. This 
night I found the land to hall the Compasse 8. degrees. 
For to the Northward off us we saw high Hils. For the 
day before we found not above 2. degrees of Variation. 
This is a very good Land to fall with, and the pleasant 
Land to see. . . . 

The eleventh, was faire and very hot weather. At one 
of the clocke in the after-noone, wee weighed and went into 

B I 



The Wayfarer in New York 

the River, the wind at South South-west, little winde. 
Our soundings were seven, sixe, five, sixe, seven, eight, 
nine, ten, twelve, thirteene, and fourteene fathomes. Then 
it shoalded againe, and came to five fathomes. Then wee 
Anchored, and saw that it was a very good Harbour for all 
windes, and rode all night. The people of the Countrey 
came aboord of us, making shew of love, and gave us 
Tobacco and Indian Wheat, and departed for that night ; 
but we durst not trust them. 

The twelfth, very faire and hot. In the after-noone at 
two of the clocke wee weighed, the winde being variable, 
between the North and the North-west. So we turned 
into the River two leagues and Anchored. This morning 
at our first rode in the River, there came eight and twentie 
Canoes full of men, women and children to betray us: 
but we saw their intent, and suffered none of them to 
come aboord of us. At twelve of the clocke they departed. 
They brought with them Oysters and Beanes, whereofif 
wee bought some. They have great Tobacco pipes of 
yellow Copper, and Pots of Earth to dresse their meate in. 
It floweth South-east by South within. 

The Thirteenth, faire weather, the vnnd Northerly. 

At seven of the clocke in the morning, as the 

floud came we weighed, and turned foure miles 

into the River. The tide being done wee 

anchored. Then there came foure Canoes 

aboord: but we suffered none of them to 

come into our ship. They brought 

great store of very good Oysters 

aboord, which we bought for 

trifles. From the Log of 

Robert Juet, as printed in 

Purchas His Pilgrimes, 

2 



I 

FROM THE BATTERY TO TRINITY 



Keep your splendid silent sun, 

Keep your woods, O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods, 

Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields 
and orchards. 

Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields where the Ninth- 
month bees hum; 

Give me faces and streets — give me these phantoms inces- 
sant and endless along the trottoirs ! 

Give me interminable eyes — give me women — give me 
comrades and lovers by the thousand ! 

Let me see new ones every day — let me hold new ones by the 
hand every day ! 

Give me such shows — give me the streets of Manhattan ! 

Walt Whitman 



From the Battery to Trinity 

The Price of Manhattan ^^ ^o -c> ^:i.' 

THE oldest known manuscript that relates to the local 
history of Manhattan, and the oldest manifest of a 
trading vessel cleared from its port, reads thus : — 

High and Mighty Lords, 

Here arrived yesterday the ship Arms of Amsterdam 
which on the 23rd September sailed from New Netherland 
out of the Mauritius River. They report that our people 
there are of good cheer and live peaceably. Their wives 
have also borne children there. They have bought the 
island Manhattes from the savages for the value of sixty 
guilders. It is 11,000 morgens in extent. They had 
all their grain sown by the middle of May and harvested 
by the middle of August. They send small samples of 
summer grain, such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, 
canary seed, beans and flax. 

The cargo of the aforesaid ship is: 
7246 beaver skins, 36 wildcat skins, 

178 half otter skins, 2)?> blinks, 
675 otter skins, 34 rat skins, 

48 mink skins, Much oak timber and nutwood. 

Herewith 

High and Mighty Lords, be commended to the grace of 
Almighty God. 

At Amsterdam, the 5th of November, A° 1626. 
Your High Mightinesses' Obedient 

P. SCHAGHEN 

Written from Amsterdam to the States General at the 
Hague. 

Quoted by Mrs. Schuyler van Rensselaer in her 

History of New York City in the Seventeenth 

Century 



The Wayfarer in New York 

The First Account of New York Printed in the Eng- 
Hsh Language ^o ^> ^^^ ^=c> 

NEW YORK is settled upon the west end of the island 
having that small arm of the sea which divides it 
from Long Island on the south side of it, which runs away 
eastward to New England, and is navigable though dan- 
gerous. For about ten miles from New York is a place 
called Hell Gate, which being a narrow passage, there run- 
neth a violent stream both upon flood and ebb, and in the 
middle lieth some Islands of Rocks, which the current 
sets so violently upon that it threatens present shipwreck; 
and upon the flood is a large Whirlpool, which continually 
sends forth a hideous roaring, enough to affright any 
stranger from passing any further, and to wait for some 
Charon to conduct him through ; yet to those that are well 
acquainted little or no danger; yet a place of great defence 
against any enemy coming in that way, which a small 
Fortification would absolutely prevent and necessitate 
them to come in at the west end of Long Island, by Sandy 
Hook, where Nutten Island doth force them within com- 
mand of the Fort at New York, which is one of the best 
Pieces of Defence in the north parts of America. 

New York is built most of brick and stone, and covered 
with red and black tile, and the land being high, it gives 
at a distance a pleasing Aspect to the Spectators. The 
inhabitants consist most of English and Dutch, and have 
a considerable trade with the Indians, for beavers, otter, 
racoon skins, with other firs ; as also for bear, deer, and elk 
skins; and are supplied with venison and fowl in the winter 
and fish in the summer by the Indians, which they buy 
at an easy rate ; and having the country round about them, 
they are continually furnished with such provisions as is 
6 



From the Battery to Trinity 

needfull for the life of man, not only by the English and 
Dutch within their own, but likewise by the adjacent 
Colonies. Daniel Denton, 1670 

Boy wanted, 1658 ^:>y ^::y ^> ^n^ ^:> 

HONORABLE, WORSHIPFUL, WISE, PRUDENT 
GENTLEMEN: In regard to the salt, which your 
Honors suppose is quite plenty at the Manhattans, you are 
mistaken. We have only a hogshead and a half, and can 
hardly get any there for money. Hardly a cup of salt can 
be had for extraordinary occasions; this causes great dis- 
content and uproar. In well regulated places it happens 
that scarcity and want occur. Much more is this the case 
in a colony far distant and newly begun. Such a colony 
ought to be provided for one year with whatever is not 
produced there or procured easily from others. 

Little or no butter is to be had here, and less cheese. 
Whenever any one is about to go on a journey he can get 
hardly anything more than dry bread, or he must carry 
along a pot or kettles to cook some food. Therefore, as 
a reminder, I say once more that it would be well if some 
rye meal, cheese, and such things were sent in all the ships. 
As horses are required here for agriculture, means should 
be found of sending a good supply of horses. 

In regard to the fort, it is in a great state of decay. I 
have resolved on building a house of planks about fifty 
feet in length and twenty in breadth; also I have had one- 
third of the house, in which I have been lodging very un- 
comfortably, repaired, yet the greater part of it is still so 
leaky that it is only with great difficulty that anything can 
be kept dry. We shall be obliged to pull down and re- 
build the soldiers' barracks immediately. 
7 



The Wayfarer in New York 

I had expected, at least, a supply of provisions in the 
ship which had just arrived. There is a set of insolent 
fellows on board of her who will not turn a hand to work 
if there be anything to do, and there never is any one to 
be hired for such work. Laborers will not stir for less 
than a dollar a day. Carpenters, masons and other 
mechanics earn four guilders; this amounts to much in 
extensive works. 

There is no reason or plea for refusing to supply the 
settlers, who have been here some time from our common 
store, in exchange for their money. There is no mer- 
chant's store here, and scarcely any one who has provisions 
for sale, for the daily supply of the inhabitants; nay, not 
even bread, although there are over six hundred souls in 
this place. Whoever has anything will not sell it, and who 
so has none, cannot. Things are here in their infancy, 
and demand time. Many who come hither are as poor 
as worms and lazy withal, and will not work unless com- 
pelled by necessity. 

Send in the spring, or in the ships sailing in December, 
a large number of strong and hard working men. Should 
they not be forth coming at the right time, their places 
can be filled with boys of fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years 
and over. Bear in mind that the boys be healthy and 
strong. Whatever is done here must be done by labor. 

The children sent over from the almshouse have arrived 
safely, and were in such demand that all are bound out 
among the inhabitants; the oldest for two years, most of 
the others for three years, and the youngest for four years. 
They are to earn forty, sixty, and eighty guilders during 
the period, and at the end of the term, will be fitted out in 
the same manner as they are at present. Please to con- 
S 



From the Battery to Trinity 

tinue sending others from time to time; but, if possible, 
none ought to come under fifteen years of age. They 
ought L^ be somewhat strong, as Httle profit is to be ex- 
pected here without labor. 

'Tis as yet somewhat too soon to send many women or 
a multitude of little children ; it will be more advisable and 
safer when crops are gathered, when abundance prevails, 
and everything is cheaper. 

I might enlarge upon this account, but time does not 
permit, as the sloop by which I send it, is ready to sail. 

From a letter by J. Alrichs (1658) to the Dutch Com- 
pany 

A Schoolmaster's Duties, 1661 ^^^ ^^:> ^^^ 

'yo THE RIGHT HONORABLE DIRECTOR- 
-■- GENERAL AND COUNCIL OF NEW NETH- 
ERLAND : — The Schout and Schepens of the Court of 
Breuckelen respectfully represent that they found it neces- 
sary that a Court Messenger was required for the Schepens' 
Chamber, to be occasionally employed in the Village of 
Breuckelen and all around where he may be needed, as 
well to serve summons, as also to conduct the service of 
the Church, and to sing on Sundays; to take charge of 
the School, dig graves, etc., ring the Bell, and perform 
whatever else may be required : Therefore, the Petitioners, 
with your Honors' approbation, have thought proper to 
accept for so highly necessary an office a suitable person 
who is now come before them, one Carel van Beauvois, to 
whom they have hereby appropriated a sum of fl. 150, besides 
a free dwelling; and whereas the Petitioners are appre- 
hensive that the aforesaid C. v. Beauvois would not and 
9 



The Wayfarer in New York 

cannot do the work for the sum aforesaid, and the Peti- 
tioners are not able to promise him any more, therefore 
the Petitioners, with all humble and proper reverence, 
request your Honors to be pleased to lend them a help- 
ing hand, in order thus to receive the needful assistance. 
Herewith, awaiting your Honors' kind and favorable 
answer, and commending ourselves, Honorable, wise, 
prudent, and most discreet Gentlemen, to your favor, we 
pray for your Honors God's protection, together with a 
happy and prosperous administration unto Salvation. 
Your Honors' servants and subjects. 
The Schout and Schepens of the Village aforesaid. 
By order of the same, . . . 
Adriaen Hegeman, Secy, (translated by H. R. Stiles) 

Why the Dutch Surrendered ^^ ^:> ^^> 

npHE Company now believing that it has fulfilled your 
-*- Honorable Mightinesses' intention, will only again 
say, in conclusion, that the sole cause and reason for the 
loss of the aforesaid place, were these: The Authorities 
(Regenten), and the chief officer, being very deeply in- 
terested in lands, bouweries and buildings, were unwilling to 
offer any opposition, first, at the time of the English encroach- 
ments, in order thereby not to afford any pretext for firing 
and destroying their properties; and, having always paid 
more attention to their particular affairs than to the Com- 
pany's interests, New Amsterdam was found, on the 
arrival of the English frigates, as if an enemy was never 
to be expected. And, finally, that the Director, first 
following the example of heedless interested parties, gave 
himself no other concern than about the prosperity of his 



From the Battery to Trinity 

bouweries, and, when the pinch came, allowed himself 
to be rode over by Clergymen, women and cowards, in 
order to surrender to the English what he could defend 
with reputation, for the sake of thus saving their private 
properties. And the Company will further leave to your 
Honorable Mightinesses' good and prudent wisdom, what 
more ought to be done in this case. . . . 

Note. — Reply of the West India Company to the An- 
swer of the Honorable Peter Stuyvesant (1666), in Docu- 
ments Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New- 
York (edited by E. B. O'Callaghan, Albany, 1858), II, 
491-503 passim. 

New York in 1679 ^^ o <^ ^v:> '^^ 

T TAVING then fortunately arrived by the blessing of 
-■■ -^ the Lord, before the city of New York, on Saturday, 
the 23d day of September, we stepped ashore about four 
o'clock in the afternoon, in company with Gerrit, our 
fellow passenger, who would conduct us in this strange 
place. ... He first took us to the house of one of his 
friends, who welcomed him and us, and offered us some 
of the fruit of the country, very fine peaches and full grown 
apples, which filled our hearts with thankfulness to God. 
This fruit was exceedingly fair and good, and pleasant 
to the taste; much better than that in Holland or else- 
where, though I believe our long fasting and craving of 
food made it so agreeable. . . . 

24th, Sunday. We rested well through the night. I 
was surprised on waking up to find my comrade had already 
dressed himself and breakfasted upon peaches. We 
walked out awhile in the fine, pure morning air, along the 
margin of the clear running water of the sea, which is 
II 



The Wayfarer in New York 

driven up this river at every tide. As it vi^as Sunday, in 
order to avoid scandal and for other reasons, we did not 
wish to absent ourselves from church. We therefore went, 
and found there truly a wild worldly world. I say wild, 
not only because the people are wild, as they call it in 
Europe, but because most all the people who go there to 
live, or who are born there, partake somewhat of the nature 
of the country, that is, peculiar to the land where they live. 
We heard a minister preach, who had come from the up- 
river country, from Fort Orange, where his residence is, 
an old man, named Domine Schaats, of Amsterdam. . . . 

This Schaats, then, preached. He had a defect in the 
left eye, and used such strange gestures and language that 
I think I never in all my life have heard any thing more 
miserable; indeed, I can compare him with no one better 
than with one Do. Van Ecke, lately the minister at Armuy- 
den, in Zeeland, more in life, conversation and gestures 
than in person. As it is not strange in these countries to 
have men as ministers who drink, we could imagine nothing 
else than that he had been drinking a little this morning. 
His text was, Come unto me all ye etc., but he was so rough 
that even the roughest and most godless of our sailors were 
astonished. 

The church being in the fort, we had an opportunity to 
look through the latter, as we had come too early for preach- 
ing. It is not large ; it has four points or batteries ; it has 
no moat outside, but is enclosed with a double row of pali- 
sades. It is built from the foundation with quarry stone. 
The parapet is of earth. It is well provided with cannon, 
for the most part of iron, though there were some small 
brass pieces, all bearing the mark of arms of the Nether- 
landers. The garrison is small. There is a well of fine 

12 



From the Battery to Trinity- 
water dug in the fort by the English, contrary to the opinion 
of the Dutch, who supposed the fort was built upon rock, 
and had therefore never attempted any such thing. . . . 
It has only one gate, and that is on the land side, open- 
ing upon a broad plain or street, called the Broadway or 
Beaverway. Over this gate are the arms of the Duke of 
York. During the time of the Dutch there were two gates, 
namely another on the water side; but the English have 
closed it, and made a battery there, with a false gate. In 
front of the church is inscribed the name of Governor 
Kyft, who caused the same to be built in the year of 1642. 
It has a shingled roof, and upon the gable towards the water 
there is a small wooden tower, with a bell in it, but no 
clock. There is a sun-dial on three sides. The front of 
the fort stretches east and west, and consequently the sides 
run north and south. . . . 

27th, Wednesday. Nothing occurred to-day except 
that I went to assist Gerrit in bringing his goods home, 
and declaring them, which we did. We heard that one 
of the wicked and godless sailors had broken his leg; and 
in this we saw and acknowledged the Lord and his righteous- 
ness. . . . 

As soon as we had dined we sent off our letters ; and this 
being all accomplished, we started at two o'clock for Long 
Island. . . . 

. . . We went on, up the hill, along open roads and a 
little woods, through the first village, called Breukelen, 
which has a small and ugly little church standing in the 
middle of the road. Having passed through here, we struck 
off to the right, in order to go to Gouanes. We went upon 
several plantations where Gerrit was acquainted with most 
all of the people, who made us very welcome, sharing with 
13 



The Wayfarer in New York 

us bountifully whatever they had, whether it was milk, 
cider, fruit or tobacco, and especially, and first and most 
of all, miserable rum or brandy which had been brought 
from Barbadoes and other islands, and which is called by 
the Dutch kill-devil. All these people are very fond of it, 
and most of them extravagantly so, although it is very dear 
and has a bad taste. . . . 



We went from the city, following the Broadway, over 
the valey, or the fresh water. Upon both sides of this 
way were many habitations of negroes, mulattoes and 
whites. These negroes were formerly the proper slaves 
of the (West India) company, but, in consequence of the 
frequent changes and conquests of the country, they have 
obtained their freedom and settled themselves down where 
they have thought proper, and thus on this road, where 
they have ground enough to live on with their families. 
We left the village, called the Bouwerij, lying on the right 
hand, and went through the woods to New Harlem, 
a tolerably large village situated on the south side of the 
island, directly opposite the place where the northeast creek 
and the East river come together, situated about three 
hours journey from New Amsterdam. 

By Jaspar Bankers and Peter Sluyter (trans- 
lated by H. C. Murphy) 

When New York was Like a Garden, 1748 <^ 

'T^HE streets do not run so straight as those of Phila- 

delphia, and have sometimes considerable bend- 

ings: however they are very spacious and well built, 

and most of them are paved, except in high places, 

H 



From the Battery to Trinity 

where it has been found useless. In the chief streets there 
are trees planted, which in summer give them a fine ap- 
pearance, and during the excessive heat at that time, afford 
a cooling shade: I found it extremely pleasant to walk in 
the town, for it seemed quite like a garden. 

Most of the houses are built of bricks ; and are generally 
strong and neat, and several stories high. Some had, 
according to old architecture, turned the gable-end towards 
the streets; but the houses were altered in this respect. 
Many of the houses had a balcony on the roof, on which 
the people used to sit in the evenings in the summer season; 
and from thence they had a pleasant view of a great part 
of the town, and likewise of part of the adjacent water 
and of the opposite shore. The roofs are commonly 
covered with tiles or shingles. The walls were white- 
washed within, and I did not any where see hangings, 
with which the people in this country seem in general to 
be but little acquainted. The walls were quite covered 
with all sorts of drawings and pictures in small frames. 
On each side of the chimnies they had usually a sort of 
alcove; and the wall under the windows was wainscoted, 
and had benches placed near it. The alcoves, and all the 
wood work were painted with a bluish grey colour. 

There are several churches in the town, which deserve 
some attention, i. The English Church, built in the year 
1695, at the west end of (the) town, consisting of stone, 
and has a steeple with a bell. 2. The new Dutch Church, 
which is likewise built of stone, is pretty large and is pro- 
vided with a steeple, it also has a clock, which is the only 
one in the town. . . . 

Towards the sea, on the extremity of the promontory, is 
a pretty good fortress, called Fort George, wliich entirely 
15 



The Wayfarer in New York 

commands the port, and can defend the town, at least from 
a sudden attack on the sea side. Besides that, it is like- 
wise secured on the north or towards the shore, by a palli- 
sade, which however (as for a considerable time the people 
have had nothing to fear from an enemy) is in many places 
in a very bad state of defence. 

There is no good water to be met with in the town itself, 
but at a little distance there is a large spring of good water, 
which the inhabitants take for their tea, and for the uses 
of the kitchen. Those, however, who are less dehcate in 
this point, make use of the water from the wells in town, 
though it be very bad. This want of good water lies heavy 
upon the horses of the strangers that come to this place; 
for they do not like to drink the water from the wells in the 
town. 

Peter Kalm, Travels into North America (translated 
by John Reinhold Forster, Warrington, 1770) 

New-York in 1760 ^^^ <::y ^^ ^^> ^:> 

'T^HIS city is situated upon the point of a small island, 
-*- lying open to the bay on one side, and on the others 
included between the North and East rivers, and commands 
a fine prospect of water, the Jerseys, Long Island, Staten 
Island, and several others, which lie scattered in the bay. 
It contains between 2 and 3000 houses, and 16 or 17,000 
inhabitants, is tolerably well built, and has several good 
houses. The streets are paved, and very clean, but in 
general they are narrow; there are two or three, indeed, 
which are spacious and airy, particularly the Broad Way. 
The houses in this street have most of them a row of trees 
before them ; which form an agreeable shade, and produce 
a pretty effect. The whole length of the town is some- 
16 



From the Battery to Trinity 

thing more than a mile; the breadth of it about half an 
one. The situation is, I believe, esteemed healthy; but it is 
subject to one great inconvenience, which is the want of 
fresh water; so that the inhabitants are obliged to have it 
brought from springs at some distance out of town. There 
are several public buildings, though but few that deserve 
attention. The college, when finished, will be exceedingly 
handsome : it is to be built on three sides of a quadrangle, 
fronting Hudson's or North river, and will be the most 
beautifully situated of any college, I believe, in the world. 
At present only one wing is finished, which is of stone, and 
consists of twenty-four sets of apartments; each having 
a large sitting room, with a study, and bed chamber. They 
are obliged to make use of some of these apartments for 
a master's lodge, library, chapel, hall, etc. but as soon as 
the whole shall be completed, there will be proper apart- 
ments for each of these offices. The name of it is King's 
College. 

There are two churches in New York, the old, or Trinity 
Church, and the new one, or St. George's Chapel; both 
of them large buildings, the former in the Gothic taste, 
with a spire, the other upon the model of some of the new 
churches in London. Besides these, there are several 
other places of religious worship; namely, two low Dutch 
Calvinist churches, one High Dutch ditto, one French 
ditto, one German Lutheran church, one presbyterian 
meeting-house, one quakers ditto, one anabaptists do, one 
Moravian ditto, and a Jews synagogue. There is also a 
very handsome charity-school for sixty poor boys and girls, 
a good work-house, barracks for a regiment of soldiers, and 
one of the finest prisons I have ever seen. The court or 
stadt-house makes no great figure, but it is to be repaired 

c l^ 



The Wayfarer in New York 

and beautified. There is a quadrangular fort, capable of 
mounting sixty cannon, though at present there are, I 
believe, only thirty-two. Within this is the governor's 
palace, and underneath it a battery capable of mounting 
ninety-four guns, and barracks for a company or two of 
soldiers. Upon one of the islands in the bay is an hospital 
for the sick and wounded seamen; and, upon another, 
a pesthouse. These are the most noted public buildings 
in and about the city. 

Arts and sciences have made no greater progress here 
than in the other colonies; but as a subscription library 
has been lately opened, and every one seems zealous to 
promote learning, it may be hoped that they will hereafter 
advance faster than they have done hitherto. The college 
is established upon the same plan as that in the Jerseys, 
except that this at New York professes the principles of 
the church of England. At present the state of it is far 
from being flourishing, or so good as might be wished. 
Its fund does not exceed 10,000 /. currency, and there is a 
great scarcity of professors. A commencement was held, 
nevertheless, this summer, and seven gentlemen took de- 
grees. There are in it at this time about twenty-five 
students. The president, Dr. Johnson, is a very worthy 
and learned man, but rather too far advanced in life to have 
the direction of so young an institution. The late Dr. 
Bristow left to this college a fine library, of which they are 
in daily expectation. 

The inhabitants of New York, in their character, very 
much resemble the Pennsylvanians : more than half of 
them are Dutch, and almost all traders : they are, there- 
fore, habitually frugal, industrious, and parsimonious. 
Being however of different nations, different languages, and 
18 



From the Battery to Trinity 

different religions, it is almost impossible to give them any 
precise or determinate character. The women are hand- 
some and agreeable ; though rather more reserved than 
the Philadelphian ladies. Their amusements are much 
the same as in Pennsylvania; viz. balls, and sleighing 
expeditions in the v^inter; and, in the summer, going in 
parties upon the water, and fishing ; or making excursions 
into the country. There are several houses pleasantly 
situated upon East river, near New York, where it is 
common to have turtle-feasts : these happen once or twice 
in a week. Thirty or forty gentlemen and ladies meet and 
dine together, drink tea in the afternoon, fish and amuse 
themselves till evening, and then return home in Italian 
chaises, (the fashionable carriage in this and most parts of 
America, Virginia excepted, where they make use only of 
coaches, and these commonly drawn by six horses), a 
gentleman and lady in each chaise. In the way there is 
a bridge, about three miles distant from New York, which 
you always pass over as you return, called the Kissing- 
Bridge, where it is a part of the etiquette to salute the lady 
who has put herself under your protection. 

The present state of this province is flourishing : it has 
an extensive trade to many parts of the world, particularly 
to the West Indies; and has acquired great riches by the 
commerce which it has carried on, under flags of truce, to 
Cape-Franfois, and Monte-Christo. The troops, by hav- 
ing made it the place of their general rendezvous, have also 
enriched it very much. However, it is burthened with 
taxes, and the present public debt amounts to more than 
300,000 /. currency. The taxes are laid upon estates real 
and personal ; and there are duties upon the Negroes, and 
other importations. The provincial troops are about 
19 



The Wayfarer in New York 

2600 men. The difference of exchange between currency 
and bills is from 70 to 80 per cent. 

Before I left New York, I took a ride upon Long Island, 
the richest spot, in the opinion of the New-Yorkers, of all 
America; and where they generally have their villas, or 
country houses. It is undeniably beautiful, and some parts 
of it are remarkably fertile, but not equal, I think, to the 
Jerseys. The length of it is something more than 100 
miles, and the breadth 25. About 15 or 16 miles from 
the west end of it, there opens a large plain between 20 and 
30 miles long, and 4 or 5 broad. There is not a tree 
growing upon it, and it is asserted that there never were 
any. Strangers are always carried to see this place, as 
a great curiosity, and the only one of the kind in North 
America. 

Andrew Burnaby, Travels through the Middle Settle- 
ments in North- America^ in the Years 17 59 and 1760 

A Mass Meeting in 1794 ^^:> <:^ ^^^ ^> 

TN the latter end of 1794, Mr. Jay arrived with the fa- 
-*- mous British Treaty; Congress being then in session, 
it was submitted to their consideration. As Washington 
and Hamilton, and most of the worthies who had risked 
their lives and staked their all, and had just achieved their 
country's independence, thought it was for the good of the 
nation, it was on the point of becoming a law; but the 
hod-men and the ashmen, and the clam men, thought 
otherwise; accordingly a meeting was called at 4 p.m. 
in front of the old City Hall, at the head of Broad Street 
to settle this momentous question. Having never seen 
a meeting of the sovereign people in z. free country I was 
anxious to attend ; and that I might have a fair view, and 
20 



From the Battery to Trinity- 
be out of harm's way, I got perched on a branch of that 
large spreading tree that graced the corner of Broad and 
Wall Streets, since the days when the Dutch negroes used 
to dance and crack eggs in the ferry-house corner of Gar- 
den and Broad Streets. Long before the hour the broad 
space was filled by the motley group ; there was the Irish 
(patriot) laborer, his face powdered with lime, his shirt 
sleeves torn or rolled up to his shoulders, he came rattling 
up with his iron shod brogans; and the clam men were 
there; and the boat men were there; and the oyster- 
men were there; and the ashmen were there; and the 
cartmen were there and their horses were there — and the 
horses appeared to have more sense than their masters; 
for the horses licked and loved the hand that fed them, 
but these ignorant cartmen knew not Him in whom they 
live move and have their being. 

The mob filled the large space down Broad as far as 
Garden Street, down Wall Street as far as the Mechanics' 
Bank, and up as far as New Street. On the corner (then 
occupied as a watch house but now by friend Burtsell as 
a Blank Book Store) stood a group, say eight or ten 
respectable looking characters; compassion was painted 
on their face, and pity shone from their swimming eyes. 
At the time I knew none of them, but afterwards learned 
that among them was Gen. Hamilton, Cols. V. G. &c. 
men who had just sheathed their swords, and wiped the 
dust and sweat from their brows, after having gained their 
country's freedom. On the steps of the City Hall (for 
these men had usurped the place of justice) stood another 
group of cold calculating sinister looking faces. In their 
countenances and eyes, you could read deeds, and plans 
of deep, dark and daring political intrigue. I knew none 

21 



The Wayfarer in New York 

of them; but their impression is stamped to this hour 
upon my memory. A tall fellow got up and called the 
assembly to order — he might as well have told Bunker's 
Hill to be removed to the deeps of Montaug Point — he 

then proposed Mr. as chairman; he then took out 

a paper and read something which neither he nor anyone 
else understood; he then got some one to second the 
motions; he then said if anyone wished to speak he might 
say on. In those days there stood a small house with its 
gable end to the street (No. 3 or 5 Broad Street) it had 
a high stoop and was occupied by J. B. who made iron 
cages wherein to confine tame birds. On this stoop Gen. 
Hamilton stood up; his clear full voice sounded like music 
over the heads of the rabble, and they stood still for some 
minutes; he lowered himself from the pedestal of his 
natural eloquence, and spoke in language simple plain, 
and suited to the capacity of his hearers. His words were 
truths, and they understood them; they were cut to the 
heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth; violent 
hands were laid on him in the midst of his speech; he 
was dragged from the stoop and hustled through the street ! 
You Americans, with all your boasted pride, you looked 
quietly on and saw your Hamilton, the right hand swords- 
man of Washington, gagged and dragged through the 
street. Thinks I to myself what a fine thing democracy 
is in theory. ... To return ; when the uproar had ceased, 
Mr. Longfellow roared out : all you who approve of ad- 
journing to Bowling Green to assist in burning the British 
Treaty will please to say Aye. The sound of the ayes 
shook the very dungeons of the watchhouse — the treaty 
was burned, while the Irishmen danced the whitehoys 
march, and the Frenchmen sang, Dan sa la Carmanoll; 
22 



From the Battery to Trinity 

the boatmen, the clam men, the hod and the oystermen 
retired to the grogshops around the Whitehall, while the 
horses and cartmen at the cellar doors around the Coffee- 
House Slip. Thus ended the first practical lesson I had 
ever seen of republican simplicity. 
From Grant Thorburn's Forty Years' Residence in 
America 

Fashions in New York in 1797 ^^:> ^^ ^;> 

New York, May 28th, 1797 
TV/TY DEAR SISTER: The enclosed pacquet was 
^^ ^ intended to be sent by General Floyd, but he went 
away before it was given to him — I have forgot what I 
wrote in it, but shall send it along & perhaps there may 
be something entertaining in it — Lucy I beheve most 
of the comissions from you & sister Hannah have been 
attended to by Brother George or myself — I have bought 
two bands which are the most fashionable trimings for 
beaver hats, a white one for the blue hat, & a yellow for 
the black one, they should be put twice around the crown 
& fastned forward in the form of a beau knot. Brother 
has got each of you a pink silk shawl which are very 
fashionable also — Many Ladies wear them for turbans, 
made in the manner that you used to make muslin ones 
last summer, George has given me one like them, The 
fine lace cost 10 shillings a yard, & I think it is very hand- 
some, there is enough for two handkerchiefs & two 
double tuckers, the way to make handkerchief's is to set 
lace, or a ruffle on a strait piece of muslin, (only pieced on 
the back to make it set to your neck,) & put it on so as to 
show only the ruffle, & make it look as if it was set on the 
neck of your gown, many Ladies trim the neck of thier 
23 



The Wayfarer in New York 

gowns with lace & go without handkerchiefs but I think 
it is a neater way to wear them — with fashionable gowns 
it will not be necessary to have much more than half a 
yard in the width of your tuckers — I send a doll, by 
Brother George which I intended to have dressed in a 
neater manner but really could not find time — it however 
has rather a fashionable appearance, the cap is made in 
a good form but you would make one much handsomer 
than I could, the beau to Miss Dollys poultice neck cloth 
is rather large but the thickness is very moderate — I 
think a cap crown & turban would become you — 
I have got a braid of hair which cost four dollars it should 
be fasten up with a comb, (without platting) under your 
turban if it has a crown & over it, if without a crown — 
Brother has got some very beautiful sattin muslin, & also 
some handsome "tartan plad" gingham for your gowns, 
there is a large pattern for two train gowns of the muslin, 
which should be made thre breadths wide two breadths 
to reach to the shoulder straps forward, and one breadth 
to be cut part of the way down before, to go over the shoulder 
& part of it to be pleated on to the shoulder straps, meeting 
the back breadths, & some of it to go around the neck, 
like the doll's — the pleats should be made pretty small, 
& not stitched to the lining, but you should wear binders 
over your shoulders — an inch & a half should be the width 
of your binders. (I must have done writing this pretty 
soon, the last sentence if you observe is quite poetical 
— but let me stick to my text Fashion). It is the fashion 
to have draw strings fastned on the corners of the shoulder 
straps by the sieves on the back, and have a tack large 
enough for them to run in, made to cross on the back, run 
under the arms an inch below the sieves & tie before — 
24 



From the Battery to Trinity 

I should advise you to have your gingham one made in 
that way, with draw'd sieves for sister Hannah & I have 
seen as large Ladies as you with them, & I think they 
would look very well for you. Sieves should be made half 
a yard wide & not drawd less than seven or eight times, 
I think they look best to have two or three drawings close 
together &a plain spot alternately — Some of the ladies 
have thier sieves coverd with drawing tacks, & have thier 
elbows uncover'd if you dont like short sieves, you should 
have long ones with short ones to come down allmost to 
your elbows, drawed four or five by the bottom — if 
yo(u) want to walk with long gowns you must draw the 
train up thr'o one of the pocket holes, I have bought some 
callico for chints trimings for old gowns, if you have any 
that you wish to wear short they are very fashionable at 
present, & gowns that are trimed with them should be made 
only to touch the ground, there is enough of the dark 
stripe for one gown, & enough of the light for one there 
should be enough white left on the dark stripe to turn 
down to prevent its ravelling. I gave lo shillings for the 
callico & have been laughed at for my 'foolish bargain' 
but I am not convinced that it is foolish. The William 
Street merchants ask three shillings a yard for trimings 
like the wide stripe & two for the narrow — I guess you 
will like the narrow — the kid shoes are of the most 
fashionable kind, & the others of the best quality 
Brother George keeps enquiring for my letter — & as 
I have fill'd up my paper I'll leave the improvement for 
you to make With love to sister Hannah & Benjamin 
I am my dear sister yours, most affectionately 

R Huntington 
Miss Lucy Huntington 

25 



The Wayfarer in New York 



An Old New York Salon ^^> ^^^ ^v> ^s:^ 

IV yTANY people were at their country-seats, but politics 
^^^ kept a number of men in town, and for this political 
and wholly masculine salon of Mrs. Croix, Gouverneur 
Morris drove down from Morrisania, Robert Livingston 
from Clermont; Governor Clinton had made it convenient 
to remain a day longer in New York. Dr. Franklin had 
been a guest of my lady for the past two days. They were 
all, with the exception of Clinton, in the drawing-room, 
when Hamilton, Steuben and Fish arrived; and several 
of the Crugers, Colonel Duer, General Knox, Mayor 
Duane, Melancthon Smith, Mr. Watts, Yates, Lansing, 
and a half-dozen lesser lights. Mrs. Croix sat in the middle 
of the room, and her chair being somewhat higher and more 
elaborate than its companions, suggested a throne : Madam 
de Stael set the fashion in many affectations which were not 
long travelling to America. In the house, Mrs. Croix 
discarded the hoopskirt, and the classic folds of her soft 
muslin gown revealed a figure as superb in contour as 
it was majestic in carriage. She looked to be twenty- 
eight, but was reputed to have been born in 1769. For 
women so endowed years have little meaning. They are 
born with what millions of their sex never acquire, a few 
with the aid of time and experience only. Nature had 
fondly and diabolically equipped her to conquer the world, 
to be one of its successes; and so she was to the last of 
her ninety-six years. Her subsequent career was as bril- 
liant in Europe as it had been, and was to be again, in 
America. In Paris, Lafayette was her sponsor, and she 
counted princes, cardinals, and nobles among her con- 
quests, and died in the abundance of wealth and honours. 
26 



From the Battery to Trinity 

If her sins found her out, they surprised her in secret only. 
To the world she gave no sign, and carried an unbroken 
spirit and an unbowed head into a vault which looks as 
if not even the trump of Judgment Day could force its 
marble doors to open and its secrets to come forth. But 
those doors closed behind her seventy-seven years later, 
when the greatest of her victims had been dust half a cen- 
tury, and many others were long since forgotten. To-night, 
in her glorious triumphant womanhood she had no thought 
of vaults in the cold hillside of Trinity, and when Hamilton 
entered the room, she rose and courtesied deeply. Then, 
as he bent over her hand: "At last. Is it you?" she ex- 
claimed softly. ''Has this honour indeed come to my house ? 
I have waited a lifetime, sir, and I took pains to assure you 
long since of a welcome." 

"Do not remind me of those wretched wasted months," 
replied Hamilton, gallantly, and Dr. Franklin nodded with 
approval. "Be sure, madam, that I shall risk no reproaches 
in the future." 

She passed him on in the fashion of royalty, and was 
equally gracious to Steuben and Fish, although she did 
not courtesy. The company, which had been scattered 
in groups, the deepest about the throne of the hostess, 
immediately converged and made Hamilton their common 
centre. Would Washington accept? Surely he must 
know. Would he choose to be addressed as "His Serene 
Highness," "His High Mightiness," or merely as "Ex- 
cellency"? Would so haughty an aristocrat lend himself 
agreeably to the common forms of Republicanism, even 
if he had refused a crown, and had been the most jealous 
guardian of the liberties of the American people? An 
aristocrat is an aristocrat, and doubtless he would observe 
27 



The Wayfarer in New York 

all the rigid formalities of court life. Most of those 
present heartily hoped that he would. They, too, were 
jealous of their liberties, but had no yearning toward a 
republican simplicity, which, to their minds, savoured of 
plebeianism. Socially they still were royalists, whatever 
their politics, and many a coat of arms was yet in its frame. 

"Of course Washington will be our first President," 
replied Hamilton, who was prepared to go to Mount 
Vernon, if necessary. '*I have had no communication 
from him on the subject, but he would obey the command 
of public duty if he were on his death-bed. His reluctance 
is natural, for his life has been a hard one in the field, and 
his tastes are those of a country gentleman, — tastes which 
he has recently been permitted to indulge to the full for the 
first time. Moreover, he is so modest that it is difficult to 
make him understand that no other man is to be thought of 
for these first difficult years. When he does, there is no 
more question of his acceptance than there was of his as- 
suming the command of the army. As for titles they come 
about as a matter of course, and it is quite positive that 
Washington, although a Republican, will never become 
a Democrat. He is a grandee and will continue to live 
like one, and the man who presumes to take a liberty with 
him is lost." 

Mrs. Croix, quite forgotten, leaned back in her chair, 
a smile succeeding the puzzled annoyance of her eyes. In 
this house her words were the jewels for which this costly 
company scrambled, but Hamilton had not been met 
abroad for weeks, and from him there was always some- 
thing to learn; whereas from even the most brilliant of 
women — she shrugged her shoulders; and her eyes, as 
they dwelt on Hamilton, gradually filled with an expression 
28 



From the Battery to Trinity 

of idolatrous pride. The new delight of self-effacement 
was one of the keenest she had known. 

The bombardment continued. The Vice-President? 
Whom should Hamilton support? Adams? Hancock? 
Was it true that there was a schism in the Federal party 
that might give the anti-Federalists, with Clinton at their 
head, a chance for the Vice-Presidency at least? Who 
would be Washington's advisers besides himself? Would 
the President have a cabinet? Would Congress sanction 
it? Whom should he want as confreres, and whom in the 
Senate to further his plans? Whom did he favour as 
Senators and Representatives from New York? Could 
this rage for amendments be stopped? What was to be 
the fate of the circular letter? Was all danger of a new 
Constitutional Convention well over? What about the 
future site of the Capital — would the North get it, or the 
South? 

All these, the raging questions of the day, it took Hamil- 
ton the greater part of the evening to answer or parry, but 
he deftly altered his orbit until he stood beside Mrs. Croix, 
the company before her shrine. He had encountered her 
eyes, but although he knew the supreme surrender of 
women in the first stages of passion, he also understood the 
vanities and weaknesses of human nature too well not to 
apprehend a chill of the affections under too prolonged a 
mortification. 

Clinton entered at midnight; and after almost bending 
his gouty knee to the hostess, whom he had never seen in 
such softened yet dazzling beauty, he measured Hamilton 
for a moment, then laughed and held out his hand. 

"You are a wonderful fighter," he said, "and you beat 
me squarely. We'll meet in open combat again and again, 
29 



The Wayfarer in New York 

no doubt of it, and I hope we will, for you rouse all my 
mettle; but I like you, sir, I like you. I can't help it." 
Gertrude Atherton in The Conqueror 

The Battery in 1804 ^^ ^v::^ ^=^ ^^>' 

THE modern spectator, who wanders through the streets 
of this populous city, can scarcely form an idea of 
the different appearance they presented in the primitive 
days of the Doubter. The busy hum of multitudes, the 
shouts of revelry, the rumbling equipages of fashion, the 
rattling of accursed carts, and all the spirit-grieving sounds 
of brawling commerce, were unknown in the settlement 
of New Amsterdam. The grass grew quietly in the high- 
ways; the bleating sheep and frolicsome calves sported 
about the verdant ridge, where now the Broadway loungers 
take their morning stroll ; the cunning fox or ravenous 
wolf skulked in the woods, where now are to be seen the 
dens of Gomez and his righteous fraternity of money- 
brokers; and flocks of vociferous geese cackled about the 
fields where now the great Tammany wigwam and the 
patriotic tavern of Martling echo with the wranglings of 
the mob. 

In these good times did a true and enviable equality of 
rank and property prevail, equally removed from the 
arrogance of wealth, and the servility and heart-burnings 
of repining poverty, and, what in my mind is still more 
conducive to tranquillity and harmony among friends, a 
happy equality of intellect was likewise to be seen. The 
minds of the good burghers of New Amsterdam seemed all to 
have been cast in one mould, and to be those honest, blunt 
minds, which, like certain manufactures, are made by the 
gross and considered as exceedingly good for common use. 
30 



From the Battery to Trinity 

In the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
four, on a fine afternoon in the glowing month of September, 
I took my customary walk upon the Battery, which is at 
once the pride and bulwark of this ancient and impregnable 
city of New York. The ground on which I trod was 
hallowed by recollections of the past; and as I slowly 
wandered through the long alley of poplars, which, like 
so many birch brooms standing on end, diffused a melan- 
choly and lugubrious shade, my imagination drew a 
contrast between the surrounding scenery and what it was 
in the classic days of our forefathers. Where the govern- 
ment house by name, but the custom-house by occupation, 
proudly reared its brick walls and wooden pillars, there 
whilom stood the low, but substantial, red-tiled mansion 
of the renowned Wouter Van Twiller. Around it the 
mighty bulwarks of Fort Amsterdam frowned defiance to 
every absent foe ; but, like many a whiskered warrior and 
gallant militia captain, confined their martial deeds to 
frowns alone. The mud breastworks had long been 
levelled with the earth, and their site converted into the 
green lawns and leafy alleys of the Battery; where the gay 
apprentice sported his Sunday coat, and the laborious 
mechanic, relieved from the dirt and drudgery of the week, 
poured his weekly tale of love into the half averted ear of 
the sentimental chambermaid. The capacious bay still 
presented the same expansive sheet of water, studded with 
islands, sprinkled with fishing boats, and bounded by 
shores of picturesque beauty. But the dark forests which 
once clothed those shores had been violated by the savage 
hand of cultivation, and their tangled mazes, and im- 
penetrable thickets, had degenerated into teeming orchards 
and waving fields of grain. Even Governor's Island, once 
31 



The Wayfarer in New York 

a smiling garden, appertaining to the sovereigns of the 
province, was now covered with fortifications, inclosing a 
tremendous block-house, — so that this once peaceful 
island resembled a fierce little warrior in a big cocked hat, 
breathing gunpowder and defiance to the world ! 

For some time did I indulge in a pensive train of thought ; 
contrasting, in sober sadness, the present day with the 
hallowed years behind the mountains; lamenting the 
melancholy progress of improvement, and praising the zeal 
with which our worthy burghers endeavored to preserve 
the wrecks of venerable customs, prejudices, and errors 
from the overwhelming tide of modern innovation, — 
when, by degrees, my ideas took a different turn, and I 
insensibly awakened to an enjoyment of the beauties 
around me. 

It was one of those rich autumnal days which heaven 
particularly bestows upon the beauteous island of ]\Ianna- 
hata and its vicinity, — not a floating cloud obscured the 
azure firmament, — the sun, rolling in glorious splendor 
through his ethereal course, seemed to expand his honest 
Dutch countenance into an unusual expression of benevo- 
lence, as he smiled his evening salutation upon a city 
which he delights to visit with his most bounteous beams, 
— the very winds seemed to hold in their breaths in mute 
attention, lest they should ruffle the tranquillity of the 
hour, — and the waveless bosom of the bay presented a 
polished mirror, in which nature beheld herself and smiled. 
The standard of our city, reserved, like a choice handker- 
chief, for days of gala, hung motionless on the flag-staff, 
which forms the handle of a gigantic churn; and even 
the tremulous leaves of the poplar and the aspen ceased to 
vibrate to the breath of heaven. Everything seemed to 
32 



From the Battery to Trinity 

acquiesce in the profound repose of nature. The formid- 
able eighteen-pounders slept in the embrasures of the 
wooden batteries, seemingly gathering fresh strength to 
fight the battles of their country on the next fourth of July; 
the solitary drum on Governor's Island forgot to call the 
garrison to their shovels; the evening gun had not yet 
sounded its signal for all the regular well-meaning poultry 
throughout the country to go to roost; and the fleet of 
canoes, at anchor between Gibbet Island and Communipaw, 
slumbered on their rakes, and suffered the innocent oysters 
to lie for a while unmolested in the soft mud of their native 
banks ! My own feelings sympathized with the contagious 
tranquillity, and I should infallibly have dozed upon one 
of those fragments of benches, which our benevolent 
magistrates have provided for the benefit of convalescent 
loungers, had not the extraordinary inconvenience of the 
couch set all repose at defiance. 

Washington Irving in 

Knickerbocker's History of New York 

As seen by Mrs. Trollope in 1831 ^^:> ^^ -*c> 

T HAVE never seen the bay of Naples, I can therefore 
•^ make no comparison, but my imagination is incapable 
of conceiving any thing of the kind more beautiful than the 
harbour of New York. Various and lovely are the objects 
which meet the eye on every side, but the naming them 
would only be to give a list of words, without conveying the 
faintest idea of the scene. I doubt if even the pencil of 
Turner could do it justice, bright and glorious as it rose 
upon us. We seemed to enter the harbour of New York 
upon waves of liquid gold, and as we darted past the green 
isles which rise from its bosom, like guardian sentinels 
D 33 



The Wayfarer in New York 

of the fair city, the setting sun stretched his horizontal 
beams farther and farther at each moment, as if to point 
out to us some new glory in the landscape. 

New York, indeed, appeared to us, even when we saw 
it by a soberer light, a lovely and a noble city. To us who 
had been so long travelling through half-cleared forests, 
and sojourning among an "I'm-as-good-as-you" popula- 
tion, it seemed, perhaps, more beautiful, more splendid, 
and more refined than it might have done, had we arrived 
there directly from London; but making every allowance 
for this, I must still declare that I think New York one of 
the finest cities I ever saw, and as much superior to every 
other in the Union (Philadelphia not excepted), as London 
to Liverpool, or Paris to Rouen. Its advantages of position 
are, perhaps, unequalled anywhere. Situated on an island, 
which I think it will one day cover, it rises, like Venice, from 
the sea, and like that fairest of cities in the days of her 
glory, receives into its lap tribute of all the riches of the 
earth. 

The southern point of Manhattan Island divides the 
waters of the harbour into the north and east rivers; on 
this point stands the city of New York, extending from 
river to river, and running northward to the extent of three 
or four miles. I think it covers nearly as much ground as 
Paris, but is much less thickly peopled. The extreme 
point is fortified towards the sea by a battery, and forms 
an admirable point of defence; but in these piping days 
of peace, it is converted into a public promenade, and 
one more beautiful, I should suppose, no city could boast. 
From hence commences the splendid Broadway, as the 
fine avenue is called, which runs through the whole city. 
This noble street may vie with any I ever saw, for its 
34 



From the Battery to Trinity- 
length and breadth, its handsome shops, neat awnings, 
excellent trotloir, and well-dressed pedestrians. It has 
not the crowded glitter of Bond Street equipages, nor the 
gorgeous fronted palaces of Regent Street; but it is mag- 
nificent in its extent, and ornamented by several handsome 
buildings, some of them surrounded by grass and trees. 
The Park, in which stands the noble city hall, is a very fine 
area. I never found that the most graphic description of 
a city could give me any feeling of being there ; and even 
if others have the power, I am very sure I have not, of 
setting churches and squares, and long-drawn streets, 
before the mind's eye. I will not, therefore, attempt a de- 
tailed description of this great metropolis of the new world, 
but will only say that during the seven weeks we stayed 
there, we always found something new to see and to admire ; 
and were it not so very far from all the old-world things which 
cling about the heart of an European, I should say that I 
never saw a city more desirable as a residence. 

The dwelling houses of the higher classes are extremely 
handsome, and very richly furnished. Silk or satin furni- 
ture is as often, or oftener, seen than chintz; the mirrors 
are as handsome as in London ; the chiffonniers, slabs, and 
marble tables as elegant; and in addition, they have all 
the pretty tasteful decoration of French porcelaine, and 
or-molu in much greater abundance, because at a much 
cheaper rate. Every part of their houses is well carpeted, 
and the exterior finishing, such as steps, railings, and door- 
frames, are very superior. Almost every house has hand- 
some green blinds on the outside; balconies are not very 
general, nor do the houses display, externally, so many 
flowers as those of Paris and London; but I saw many 
rooms decorated within, exactly like those of an European 
35 



The Wayfarer in New York 

petite mattresse. Little tables, looking and smelling like 
flower beds, portfolios, nick-nacks, bronzes, busts, cameos, 
and alabaster vases, illustrated copies of lady-like rhymes 
bound in silk, and, in short, all the pretty coxcomalities 
of the drawing-room scattered about with the same profuse 
and studied negligence as with us. 

Hudson Square and its neighbourhood is, I believe, the 
most fashionable part of the town ; the square is beautiful, 
excellently well planted with a great variety of trees, and 
only wanting our frequent and careful mowing to make 
it equal to any square in London. The iron railing which 
surrounds this enclosure is as high and as handsome as 
that of the Tuileries, and it will give some idea of the care 
bestowed on its decoration, to know that the gravel for 
the walks was conveyed by barges from Boston, not as 
ballast, but as freight. 

The great defect in the houses is their extreme uniformity 
— when you have seen one, you have seen all. Neither 
do I quite like the arrangement of the rooms. In nearly 
all the houses the dining and drawing-rooms are on the same 
floor, with ample folding doors between them; when 
thrown together they certainly make a very noble apart- 
ment; but no doors can be barrier sufficient between 
dining and drawing-rooms. Mixed dinner parties of 
ladies and gentlemen, however, are very rare, which is a 
great defect in the society; not only as depriving them of 
the most social and hospitable manner of meeting, but as 
leading to frequent dinner parties of gentlemen without 
ladies, which certainly does not conduce to refinement. 

The evening parties, excepting such as are expressly 
for the young people, are chiefly conversational; we are 
too late in the season for large parties, but we saw enough 
36 



From the Battery to Trinity 

to convince us that there is society to be met with in New 
York, which would be deemed dehghtful any where. 
Cards are very seldom used; and music, from their having 
very Httle professional aid at their parties, is seldom, I believe, 
as good as what is heard at private concerts in London. 

The Americans have certainly not the same hesoin of 
being amused, as other people; they may be the wiser 
for this, perhaps, but it makes them less agreeable to a 
looker-on. 

There are three theatres at New York, all of which we 
visited. The Park Theatre is the only one licensed by 
fashion, but the Bowery is infinitely superior in beauty; 
it is indeed as pretty a theatre as I ever entered, perfect as 
to size and proportion, elegantly decorated, and the scenery 
and machinery equal to any in London, but it is not the 
fashion. The Chatham is so utterly condemned by hon 
ton, that it requires some courage to decide upon going 
there ; nor do I think my curiosity would have penetrated 
so far, had I not seen Miss Mitford's Rienzi advertised 
there. It was the first opportunity I had had of seeing 
it played, and spite of very indifferent acting, I was de- 
lighted. The interest must have been great, for till the 
curtain fell, I saw not one quarter of the queer things around 
me : then I observed in the front row of a dress-box a lady 
performing the most maternal office possible; several 
gentlemen without their coats, and a general air of con- 
tempt for the decencies of life, certainly more than usually 
revolting. . . . 

I visited all the exhibitions in New York. The Medici 

of the Republic must exert themselves a little more before 

these can become even respectable. The worst of the 

business is, that with the exception of about half a dozen 

37 



The Wayfarer in New York 

individuals, the good citizens are more than contented, they 
are delighted. 

The newspaper lungs of the Republic breathe forth 
praise and triumph, nay, almost pant with ecstasy in speak- 
ing of their native chef d'oeuvres. I should be hardly 
believed were I to relate the instances which fell in my 
way, of the utter ignorance respecting pictures to be found 
among persons of the first standing in society. Often 
where a liberal spirit exists, and a wish to patronise the 
fine arts is expressed, it is joined to a profundity of igno- 
rance on the subject almost inconceivable. A doubt as to 
the excellence of their artists is very nervously received, 
and one gentleman, with much civility, told me, that at 
the present era, all the world were aware that competition 
was pretty well at an end between our two nations, and 
that a little envy might naturally be expected to mix with 
the surprise with which the mother country beheld the dis- 
tance at which her colonies were leaving her behind them. 

I must, however, do the few artists with whom I became 
acquainted, the justice to say, that their own pretensions 
are much more modest than those of their patrons for them. 
I have heard several confess and deplore their ignorance of 
drawing, and have repeatedly remarked a sensibility to the 
merit of European artists, though perhaps only known 
by engravings, and a deference to their authority, which 
showed a genuine feeling for the art. In fact, I think that 
there is a very considerable degree of natural talent for 
painting in America, but it has to make its way through 
darkness and thick night. When an academy is founded, 
their first care is to hang the walls of its exhibition room 
with all the unutterable trash that is offered to them. No 
living models are sought for; no discipline as to the manner 
38 



From the Battery to Trinity 

of study is enforced. Boys who know no more of human 
form, than they do of the eyes, nose, and mouth, in the 
moon, begin painting portraits. If some of them would 
only throw away their palettes for a year, and learn to 
draw; if they would attend anatomical lectures, and take 
notes, not in words, but in forms, of joints and muscles, 
their exhibitions would soon cease to be so utterly below 
criticism, 
Mrs. Trollope in Domestic Manners of the Americans 

As Dickens saw the City in 1842 '^^ ^v> ^cy 

'T^HERE lay stretched out before us, to the right, con- 
-^ fused heaps of buildings, with here and there a spire 
or steeple, looking down upon the herd below; and here 
and there, again, a cloud of lazy smoke; and in the fore- 
ground a forest of ships' masts, cheery with flapping sails 
and waving flags. Crossing from among them to the 
opposite shore, were steam ferry-boats laden with people, 
coaches, horses, waggons, baskets, boxes: crossed and re- 
crossed by other ferry-boats: all travelling to and fro: 
and never idle. Stately among these restless Insects, were 
two or three large ships, moving with slow majestic pace, 
as creatures of a prouder kind, disdainful of their puny 
journeys, and making for the broad sea. Beyond, were 
shining heights, and islands in the glancing river, and a 
distance scarcely less blue and bright than the sky it 
seemed to meet. The city's hum and buzz, the clinking 
of capstans, the ringing of bells, the barking of dogs, the 
clattering of wheels, tingled in the listening ear. All of 
which life and stir, coming across the stirring water, 
caught new life and animation from its free companion- 
ship ; and, sympathising with its buoyant spirits, glistened 
39 



The Wayfarer in New York 

as it seemed in sport upon its surface, and hemmed the 
vessel around, and plashed the water high about her sides, 
and, floating her gallantly into the dock, flew off again to 
welcome other comers, and speed before them to the busy 
Port. 

The great promenade and thoroughfare, as most people 
know, is Broadway; a wide and bustling street, which, 
from the Battery Gardens to its opposite termination in 
a country road, may be four miles long. Shall we sit down 
in an upper floor of the Carlton House Hotel (situated 
in the best part of this main artery of New York), and when 
we are tired of looking down upon the life below, sally 
forth arm-in-arm, and mingle with the stream? . . . 

Warm weather! The sun strikes upon our heads at 
this open window, as thbugh its rays were concentrated 
through a burning glass; but the day is in its zenith, and 
the season an unusual one. Was there ever such a sunny 
street as this Broadway ! The pavement stones are polished 
with the tread of feet until they shine again ; the red bricks 
of the houses might be yet in the dry, hot kilns; and the 
roofs of those omnibuses look as though, if water were 
poured on them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell 
like half-quenched fires. No stint of omnibuses here! 
Half-a-dozen have gone by within as many minutes. 
Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches too; gigs, phaetons, 
large-wheeled tilburies, and private carriages rather of 
a clumsy make, and not very different from the public 
vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city 
pavement. Negro coachmen and white; in straw hats, 
black hats, white hats, glazed caps, fur caps; in coats of 
drab, black, brown, green, blue, nankeen, striped jean and 
linen; and there, in that one instance (look while it passes, 
40 



From the Battery to Trinity 

or it will be too late), in suits of livery. Some southern re- 
publican that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and swells 
with Sultan pomp and power. Yonder, where that phaeton 
with the well-clipped pair of grays has stopped — standing 
at their heads now — is a Yorkshire groom, who has not 
been very long in these parts, and looks sorrowfully round 
for a companion pair of top-boots, which he may traverse 
the city half a year without meeting. Heaven save the 
ladies, how they dress! We have seen more colours in 
these ten minutes, than we should have seen elsewhere, 
in as many days. What various parasols! what rainbow 
silks and satins ! what pinking of thin stocking, and pinch- 
ing of thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels, 
and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hooks and linings ! 
The young gentlemen are fond, you see, of turning down 
their shirt-collars and cultivating their whiskers, especially 
under the chin; but they cannot approach the ladies in 
their dress or bearing, being to say the truth, humanity 
of quite another sort. Byrons of the desk and counter, 
pass on, and let us see what kind of men those are behind 
ye: those two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one 
carries in his hand a crumpled scrap of paper from which 
he tries to spell out a hard name, while the other looks about 
for it on all the doors and windows. . . . 

This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blistering in 
the sun, is Wall Street : the Stock Exchange and Lombard 
Street of New York. Many a rapid fortune has been 
made in this street, and many a no less rapid ruin. Some 
of these very merchants whom you see hanging about 
here now, have locked up money in their strong-boxes, like 
the man in the Arabian Nights, and opening them again, 
have found but withered leaves. Below, here by the water- 
41 



The Wayfarer in New York 

side, where the bowsprits of ships stretch across the foot- 
way, and almost thrust themselves into the windows. He 
the noble American vessels which have made their Packet 
Service the finest in the world. They have brought hither 
the foreigners who abound in all streets : not perhaps, that 
there are more here, than in other commercial cities; but 
elsewhere, they have particular haunts, and you must find 
them out; here, they pervade the town. . . . 

Charles Dickens in American Notes 

The March of the Seventh Regiment down Broadway, 
1861 ^c> ^^> ^:> ^^ ^^ ^^:> 

IT was worth a life that march. Only one who passed, as 
we did, through that tempest of cheers, two miles long 
can know the terrible enthusiasm of the occasion. I could 
hardly hear the rattle of our own gun-carriages, and only 
once or twice the music of our band came to me muffled 
and quelled by the uproar. We knew now if we had not 
before divined it, that our great city was with us as one 
man, utterly united in the great cause we were marching 
to sustain. 

This grand fact I learned by two senses. If hundreds 
of thousands roared it in my ears, thousands slapped it 
into my back. My fellow citizens smote me on the knap- 
sack, as I went by at the gun-rope, and encouraged me 
each in his own dialect. "Bully for you !" alternated with 
benedictions, in the proportion of two bullies to one blessing. 

I was not so fortunate as to receive more substantial 
tokens of sympathy. But there were parting gifts showered 
on the regiment enough to establish a variety-shop. Hand- 
kerchiefs, of course, came floating down upon us from the 
windows, like a snow. Pretty little gloves pelted us with 
42 



From the Battery to Trinity 

lovetaps. The sterner sex forced upon us pocket-knives 
new and jagged, combs, soap, slippers, boxes of matches, 
cigars by the dozen and the hundred, pipes to smoke shag 
and pipes to smoke Latakia, fruit, eggs and sandwiches. 
One fellow got a new purse with ten bright quarter eagles. 
At the corner of Grand Street or thereabouts a **bhoy" 
in red flannel shirt and black dress pantaloons, leaning 
back against the crowd with Herculean shoulders, called 
me, — '*Saay, bully! take my dorg! he's one of the kind 
that holds till he draps." This gentleman, with his animal, 
was instantly shoved back by the police, and the Seventh 
lost the "dorg." 

These were the comic incidents of the march, but under- 
lying all was the tragic sentiment that we might have tragic 
work presently to do. The news of the rascal attack in 
Baltimore on the Massachusetts Sixth had just come in. 
Ours might be the same chance. If there were any of us 
not in earnest before the story of the day would steady us. 
So we said good bye to Broadway, moved down Cortlandt 
Street under a bower of flags, and at half -past six shoved 
off in the ferry-boat. 

Theodore Winthrop in 

The Atlantic Monthly, June, 1861 

The Great Panic ofi873^^::>' ^^ ^^> ^^ 

/^NE rainy day in this year found Jacob Dolph in Wall 
^^ Street. Although he himself did not think so, he 
was an old man to others, and kindly hands, such as were 
to be found even in that infuriate crowd, had helped him up 
the marble steps of the Sub-Treasury and had given him 
lodgment on one of the great blocks of marble that dominate 
the street. From where he stood he could see Wall Street, 
43 



The Wayfarer in New York 

east and west, and the broad plaza of Broad Street to the 
south, filled with a compact mass of men, half hidden 
by a myriad of umbrellas, rain-soaked, black, glinting in 
the dim light. So might a Roman legion have looked, 
when each man raised his targum above his head and came 
shoulder to shoulder with his neighbor for the assault. 

There was a confused, ant-like movement in the vast 
crowd, and a dull murmur came from it, rising, in places, 
into excited shouts. Here and there the fringe of the mass 
swelled up and swept against the steps of some building, 
forcing, or trying to force, an entry. Sometimes a narrow 
stream of men trickled into the half-open doorway; some- 
times the great portals closed, and then there was a mad 
outcry and a low groan, and the foremost on the steps 
suddenly turned back, and in some strange way slipped 
through the throng and sped in all directions to bear to 
hushed or clamorous offices the news that this house or 
that bank had "suspended payment." ''Busted," the 
panting messengers said to white-faced merchants; and 
in the slang of the street was conveyed the message of doom. 
The great panic of 1873 was upon the town — the outcome 
of long years of unwarranted self-confidence, of selfish ex- 
travagance, of conscienceless speculation — and, as hour 
after hour passed by, fortunes were lost in the twinkling 
of an eye, and the bread was taken out of the mouths of 
the helpless. 

After Jacob Dolph had stood for some time, looking 
down upon the tossing sea of black umbrellas, he saw 
a narrow lane made through the crowd in the wake of 
a little party of clerks and porters, bearing aid perhaps to 
some stricken bank. Slipping down, he followed close 
behind them. Perhaps the jostling hundreds on the side- 
44 



From the Battery to Trinity 

walk were gentle with him, seeing that he was an old man; 
perhaps the strength of excitement nerved him, for he made 
his way down the street to the flight of steps leading to 
the door of a tall white building, and he crowded himself up 
among the pack that was striving to enter. He had even 
got so far that he could see the line pouring in above his 
head, when there was a sudden cessation of motion in 
the press, and one leaf of the outer iron doors swung for- 
ward, meeting the other, already closed to bar the crush, 
and two green-painted panels stood, impassable, between 
him and the last of the Dolph fortune. 

One howl and roar, and the crowd turned back on itself, 
and swept him with it. In five minutes a thousand offices 
knew of the greatest failure of the day; and Jacob Dolph 
was leaning — weak, gasping, dazed — against the side wall 
of a hallway in William Street, with two stray office-boys 
staring at him out of their small, round, unsympathetic eyes. 
H. C. BuNNER in The Story of a New York House 
Copyright, 1887, by Charles Scribner's Sons 

The Two Cities ^^^ ^:i^ ^^ ^:> ^v> 

'' I ^WAS dusk, and from my window 

"*- Upon the streets below 
I saw the people passing. 

Like shadows, to and fro; 

And faintly, very faintly, 

I heard the ceasing din; 
And, like the dusk without me, 

There was a dusk within. 

And thoughts, with eager footsteps, 

Dim thoughts of joy and pain, 

45 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Filled the streets and byways of 
The City in my brain. 

A passing light, and holy, 

Like that which softly falls 
Through open gates in cloudlets 

Upon cathedral walls, 

Fell upon the towers of 

The City in my mind; 
My inward sight grew clearer, 

My outward vision blind. 

Forgotten was the window, 
There seemed no street below; 

I did not see them passing, 
The shadows, to and fro. 

I was between Two Cities 

In which my spirit dwells; 
And I could hear the chimings 

Of two sad sets of bells. 

Without, the holy Trinity's; 

And deep within my soul 
My heart was throbbing like a bell 

When it has ceased to toll. 

T. B. Aldrich, 1854 

The Aquarium and the Docks ■<;> ^;:> ^:> 
/^LD CASTLE GARDEN makes a fairly decent build- 
^^ ing for an aquarium, and besides it is isolated in Battery 
Park and no one is crying for the land it occupies. Some 
associations and traditions cling about it and lend a scrap 
46 



From the Battery to Trinity 

of romance to it. It started into life in 1811 as Fort 
Clinton and was then situated on a tiny island lying off 
Battery Park. In 1822, or thereabouts, it ceased to be 
a fort and was turned into a place of amusement, where 
Jenny Lind first sang when she came to America, and 
Lafayette and Kossuth were publicly received and wel- 
comed. In a few years the playhouse had turned into 
a station for the reception of immigrants from the Old 
World, and in 1896 it was fitted up as an aquarium. It 
now houses the finest collection of fishes in the world, but 
it has almost completely lost its old character. Instead 
of covering a tiny island it rests bedded in the stone slabs 
of Battery Park and looks somewhat like a half-sunken 
gas tank. Sentiment may cling about it, and the folk with 
neither New York ancestry nor history may reverence it 
because it is so ''very old" ; but in reality it is sad rubbish 
and has little place in the new city. . . . 

The early gathering place was no doubt the lower end 
of the East River. The Battery (which, by the way, never 
battered anything, at any time) was the first landing-place 
of the Dutch, and it was the region about South Ferry that 
afterward became an anchorage for their flat-bottomed, 
high-pooped ships. After the Revolution the large sailing 
craft that came into the harbor required deeper water to 
make landings; so the shallows were filled in from Front 
Street, the docks were pushed out into the stream, and 
South Street came into existence. In very recent years the 
docks have been extended still farther, and the shipping 
ofiices and storage houses along South Street are now some 
distance back from the pier heads. Some of the old 
buildings with new fronts are still standing; and, even 
to-day, there are huge schooners and square-rigged ships 
47 



The Wayfarer in New York 

lying at the piers with bowsprits reaching over into the 
street. Some reminders of the days of cHpper ships and 
the China trade hnger, but are gradually being elbowed 
out of existence by newer enterprises. 

The East River front of Manhattan is now a strange 
conglomeration of docks, trucks, shops, saloons, and ware- 
houses. Many commercial interests are centered there, 
with many people and much activity. Everything is 
moving or being moved. At Coenties Slip, as one comes 
around from South Ferry, the activity is not at once ap- 
parent. There is a little park with bushes and trees 
(Jeannette Park) near by, which is usually well patronized 
by the unemployed ; and across the street from it there are 
scores of canal-boats tied together in the dock, that seem 
deserted and decadent. But a few steps farther on brings 
a change. Long piers run out into the river and brown- 
red sheds are alive with milling men and pulling horses. 
Steamers from Spain, Porto Rico, Havana, Galveston, 
ships from many southern ports, are unloading or taking 
on cargo. The street is a tangle of trucks, the sidewalk 
a turmoil of people, the shops a bustle of business. Many 
of the old buildings are occupied as shipping offices, store- 
houses, or ship chandleries. Anything needed on ship- 
board can be bought in such places — canvas, cordage, 
blocks, packing, pipes, tubes, oils, paints, lanterns, com- 
passes, bells, swords, guns. Food and clothing supplies 
are near at hand ; and the saloon along South Street, with 
its modicum of cheer, is never "hull down" on the horizon. 
When Jack or his captain comes ashore, there are plenty 
of opportunities offered him to get rid of his money before 
he reaches the Bowery. 

As one moves toward the Brooklvn Bridge the interests 
48 



From the Battery to Trinity 

become more varied. The different slips widen out to the 
docks and furnish room for many warehouses and shops 
in low brick buildings, some of them with gam.breled 
roofs and dormer windows. The docks are piled high 
with odd looking boxes, with green and blue barrels; 
schooners and ships are anchored beside car-floats loaded 
with yellow freight-cars; ferry-houses are near by from 
which bright-colored boats are coming and going; tugs 
are pushing and hauling at tows; steamers rush by with 
a splash and a swash. From the piers, looking up and 
over the tangle of trucks, perhaps the stranger catches a 
glimpse of the Broadway sky-scrapers, resting serenely in 
the far upper air like a ridge of snow mountains, quite 
unaffected by the noisy worry of the water front. How 
stupendous in size, how superb in light and air they seem 
by comparison with the junk shops and the dock sheds! 
Perhaps he glances around to the east, and there sees the 
swooping span of the Brooklyn Bridge, — still another 
contrast between the new and the old. Possibly later on 
he figures it out quietly by himself that the dirty docks and 
the greasy ships and the noisy trucks are after all not to be 
despised, for they made possible the beautiful bridge and 
paid for the immaculate-looking sky-scrapers. Com- 
merce foots the bill, abuse it as we may. 

South Street runs on under the Brooklyn Bridge, past 
Fulton Market with its fish stalls and tumble-down shops ; 
past Peck Slip with its old houses; past Providence and 
New Haven steamers, the Manhattan Bridge, the little 
long park at Rutgers Slip; past warehouses, warehouses, 
warehouses. Scows are being filled with city refuse, cars 
are being unloaded with merchandise at the docks, factories 
and machine-shops are cropping out along the way, gas- 
E 49 



The Wayfarer In New York 

houses and lumber-yards begin to bulk large. Right in 
the midst of this region (formerly a haunt of thieves) comes 
another surprise. This is Corlear's Park with its Italian- 
looking loggia and its eight acres sloping down to the open 
river. There are no piers or sheds here, and the water 
view is unobstructed. Sound steamers, sloops, schooners, 
lighters, ferry-boats slip past on the tide, up and under the 
Williamsburgh Bridge; and occasionally a motor-boat 
with its put-put, or some pleasure yacht, careens and 
pitches on its way. Off in the background, across the 
river, are the battle-ships that are being repaired at the 
Brooklyn Navy Yard, or the old hulks that have had their 
day and are now rotting at the dock. It is a picturesque 
spot just here at Corlear's Hook, where the river turns 
and where South Street comes to an end. 

The North River, as the lower part of the Hudson is 
sometimes called, was not of much trade importance in the 
early days of New York. There were no docks along it 
because all the ships went to South Street. Sailing craft 
came round the Battery and went up the Hudson without 
stopping. They were seen and admired by the New 
Yorkers who had residences on the ridge, for the ridge was 
then famous for the "view." So late as 1800 old St. 
Paul's, Columbia College, and the Hospital looked down 
to the river and beheld a practically unobstructed panorama. 
There was no West Street then. 

Before that time the water front was even more primitive. 
From Warren to Desbrosses Street was the ''bouwerie" 
of Anneke Jans, whose many descendants still dream of 
untold wealth coming to them when the law finally gives 
them their due. On either side of Canal Street was Lis- 
penard's Meadows, where almost anything could be docked 
SO 



From the Battery to Trinity 

except a ship, and where nothing was trucked except loads 
of hay. Beyond came Greenwich Village with no vast com- 
mercial interest, though ships sometimes lay at anchor in 
the stream off from it. After this the shore line as far as 
Spuyten Duyvil Creek was unbroken and untrodden — 
Fort Gansevoort, which stood near the present market- 
place, and Fort Washington at One Hundred and Seventy- 
Fifth Street, being latter-day works. 

But a great change has taken place since the days of the 
Dutch, or the English, or even the American occupation. 
Less than a hundred years has transformed the North 
River into a water-way for the ships of the world, the 
meadow front is now a broad street with the unceasing 
reverberation of traffic; and the water's edge, from the 
Battery to the Riverside Park, is occupied by long piers 
and sheds where ocean liners are docked and unloaded. 
The ocean carrying trade of New York is now located there. 
Practically all the important lines of passenger steamers 
have their docks there, or across the river at Hoboken. 

Along the Chelsea region of the North River, scattered 
like the sky-scrapers on Broadway, are the huge trans- 
atlantic liners with sharp noses pushing in toward West 
Street. With them and near them are the smaller steamers 
plying to Havana, Mexico, South America, Spain, Italy, 
Greece; the immigrant steamers coming up from Naples, 
Palermo, or Trieste; the coasting steamers from New 
Orleans, Galveston, Boston, Providence; the white river 
steamers running to Troy and Albany. In the foreign 
passenger trade alone there are some three hundred or 
more of these craft coming and going to this port ; and the 
number of coasters that creep into the harbor at odd times 
and in strange ways mounts up into the thousands. 
51 



The Wayfarer in New York 

The "tramps," fruit carriers, cattle and tank steamers 
are of all kinds and descriptions, come from all over the 
seven seas and beyond, and fly the flags of every nation 
having a merchant marine. Besides these there are ships 
and sails of old-time merchants, perhaps, that have no 
regular sailings, casual ships with strange cargoes that come 
up from the underworld of China or Peru when they can, 
and go out again with grain, iron, or coal for distant seas 
when they must. 

They make graceful combinations on the water, with 
their fine lines and colors, their smoke and steam, their 
gliding motion — these ships and sails. In fact, the North 
River, with its fleet of big and little craft and its many- 
colored flags, funnels, and hulls, makes a harbor view more 
lively and more imposing than Backhuisen of Willem van 
de Velde ever imagined. Not the least important values 
in the picture are the fore-and-aft sails of the huge six and 
seven masted schooners or the square sails of barks or 
brigs or full-rigged ships. Even the little spots of steam 
and color in tugs, fire-boats, car-floats, yachts, help out 
the picture by giving it brilliancy. When the red and green 
and olive ferries, the yellow revenue-cutters, the blue canal- 
boats, the white island-boats, with an occasional white 
and buff war-ship, are added to the scene, and the whole 
moving mass has the towering lower city at sunset for a 
background, the color of it becomes startling, bewildering, 
quite dazzling. 

The piers on the North River where the big steamers are 
warped in and the little ones touch or are unloaded, are 
at least capacious; and capacity is, after all, an absolute 
necessity. Huge cargoes have to be handled upon them 
in short spaces of time, and many donkey engines, derricks, 
52 



From the Battery to Trinity 

and hoists, with scores and scores of longshoremen, are 
in requisition. Hand-trucks, horse-trucks, auto-trucks, 
rumble here and there with boxes, bales, and barrels con- 
taining goods from everywhere — bananas from Jamaica, 
coffee from Mexico, tea from China, wine from France, 
macaroni from Italy, spices from the Indies, sugar from 
Cuba, woods from Brazil, pulp from Norway, cloths from 
England, cutlery from Germany. This freight handling 
is always more or less complicated, because the docks are 
the distributing places where goods are sorted over and re- 
shipped to different points throughout the country. More- 
over, for every cargo coming in there is perhaps a larger 
cargo going out. Silks and works of art may be arriving 
at one side of the pier; and beef, machinery, shoes be 
departing by the other side. Add to this foreign trade the 
domestic trade by river, sound, and shore, by railway and 
tramvv^ay; add further the passenger traffic along these 
piers from ferry and steamer, the come and go by car and 
cab and carriage, and it can easily be imagined that the 
North River piers and docks are places of activity, centers 
of energy. 

Though thousands are at work about these piers and are 
continually crossing each other's path, there is usually 
little confusion. Everything moves systematically and 
everyone understands the law of traffic in the city, — keep 
to the right and keep moving. In and out of these pier 
sheds all day (and sometimes all night), people, trucks, 
and carts move in files, loading and unloading, passing 
and repassing. West Street receives them and rejects 
them and receives them again. The wide thoroughfare 
seems always in an uproar (except on Sunday) ; and, of 
course, traffic occasionally gets into a tangle. 
S3 



The Wayfarer in New York 

This is not to be wondered at, for the mass and the mix of 
West Street are something quite out of the ordinary. It 
is facile princeps the street of trucks in the whole city. 
Every conceivable kind of a vehicle — dray, express- 
wagon, mail wagon, furniture-van, butcher-cart, garbage- 
cart, beer-skid, beam-reach — is there. Sandwiched in 
among them or dashing across them are cabs, carriages, 
hansoms, automobiles. Dozens of trolley cars run across 
this street to the different ferry-houses; two car tracks 
run the full length of it, and down these tracks, perhaps 
in the busiest portion of the day, will come a long train 
of freight-cars of the New York Central Railroad. Such 
a hurly-burly of traffic naturally produces the "jam" 
which sometimes requires the services of the police to 
straighten out. 

The dock side of West Street is laid with asphalt, but 
the street proper, where the trucks and trolleys go, is paved 
with stone blocks — Belgian blocks. The jar and jolt, 
the shock and rumble, arising from these stones is not 
pleasant. No one can hear himself talk during traffic 
hours, except the cabbies and the truck drivers. Even 
they are usually purple in the face from trying to outroar 
the rumble, though sometimes they get blue and green 
with wrath when a collision takes place, and they exchange 
compliments about each other's driving. 

The human voice, however, does not reach very far in 
West Street. A gong, a honk, or a whistle does better 
service. People, when they want to chat quietly, go inside. 
The "inside" is a saloon, a restaurant, a shop, or an office 
of the kind usually found along the sea edge of a city. 
The North River interior is newer than that of the East 
River, but in character not essentially different. The 
54 



From the Battery to Trinity 

shipping agencies, supply stores, warehouses, factories, 
mills, markets, lumberyards, with all kinds of little dens 
that sell drink or food or clothing to the longshoremen, are 
also apparent. They are not cleanly-looking or inviting. 
The dust of the street and the habits of the crowd keep 
them grimy and bedraggled-looking. But they are pictu- 
resque. Even the blatant sign with its high-keyed coloring 
belongs here and helps complete the picture. Modern 
commerce in West Street, with its trucks and liners and 
dingy buildings, is just as pictorial, and far more truthful, 
than, say, Claude's shipping and seaports, with classic 
palaces and quays smothered in a sulphur sunset. But 
it may be admitted that a proper angle of vision and some 
perspective are needed to see it that way. 

And around the water front on West Street, as well as 
South Street, one meets with a soiled and unkempt-looking 
mass of humanity that is quite as picturesque in its way 
as the streets or the buildings. It is by no means made up 
of New Yorkers alone. The races of the earth seem to 
have sent representatives to it, each one speaking his own 
language. The waifs and strays that have been jettisoned 
violently from foreign ships, the stowaways from the liners, 
the tramps from the railways, all gather along the docks 
looking for something to turn up. Among them one can 
see blacks from Jamaica, browns from India, yellows from 
the Malay Peninsula, whites from Europe, and half-tones 
from South America. It is a colorful mass of humanity 
in both face and costume, and it has the further artistic 
element of repose about it. That is to say, it sits down in 
the sunshine whenever it can, and works only by fits and 
starts. Its color is oftener seen in conjunction with some 
convenient barrel or saloon bar than elsewhere. No doubt 
55 



The Wayfarer in New York 

there are many hard-working, decent citizens among the 
longshoremen, but as a class they are given a rather bad 
name. Thieves and ''dock rats" mingle with them, 
thugs like their company, derelicts from every sea, ne'er- 
do-wells from every shore, join them. The police do not 
hold them in the highest esteem. 

Yet the longshoremen are as much a part of New York as 
the ship-owners, agents, clerks, commuters, and other 
well-dressed people that pass along West Street — an 
interesting part at that. And West Street is a characteristic 
New York thoroughfare furnishing both color and con- 
trast with quite as much vividness as Broadway. It is 
neither a soulful nor a sanitary belt, nor is it a place where 
one can rest body or mind; but it has swirls of motion, 
flashes of light, combinations of tones that are at least 
entertaining. The place and the people complement each 
other. Jqjj^ q y^^ j^YKE in The New New York 

Liberty Enlightening the World ^^^ ^> -^^^ 

■\1 GARDEN at ocean's gate, 

* ^ Thy feet on sea and shore, 
Like one the skies await 

When time shall be no more ! 
What splendors crown thy brow? 
What bright dread angel Thou, 
Dazzling the waves before 
Thy station great? 

**My name is Liberty! 

From out a mighty land 
I face the ancient sea, 

I lift to God my hand; 
56 



From the Battery to Trinity 

By day in Heaven's light, 
A pillar of fire by night 
At ocean's gate I stand 
Nor bend the knee. 

"The dark Earth lay in sleep, 
Her children crouched forlorn, 

Ere on the western steep 
I sprang to height, reborn : 

Then what a joyous shout 

The quickened lands gave out, 
And all the choir of morn 
Sang anthems deep. 

"Beneath your firmament, 
The New World to the Old 

My sword and summons sent, 
My azure flag unrolled: 

The Old World's hands renew 

The strength: the form ye view 
Came from a living mould 
In glory blent. 

"O ye, whose broken spars 
Tell of the storms ye met, 

Enter! fear not the bars 
Across your pathway set: 

Enter at Freedom's porch, 

For you I lift my torch, 
For you my coronet 
Is rayed with stars. 

"But ye that hither draw 
To desecrate my fee, 
57 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Nor yet have held in awe 
The justice that makes free, — 

Avaunt, ye darkling brood ! 

By Right my house hath stood: 
My name is Liberty, 
My throne is Law." 

O wonderful and bright, 

Immortal Freedom, hail ! 
Front, in thy fiery might, 

The midnight and the gale: 
Undaunted on this base 
Guard well thy dwelling-place: 
Till the last sun grow pale 
Let there be Light ! 

Edmund Clarence Stedman 
Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin &= Co. 

From the Deck of the Cunarder ^^y ^o ^^>y 

"pAST the Hook the Campania glided, and then 
■*- turned sharp to starboard into the noble expanse of 
New York Bay. The great ship crept deviously along 
the deep-water channel, but over the wide sheet of scarcely 
rippled water tiny launches and steam yachts scudded 
round and round us, as if we were a ten-knot tramp steamer 
instead of one of the fastest couriers of the Altantic. As 
early as this much was unfamiliar to the English eye. The 
coasting schooners, flapping lazily in the vain expectation 
of a wind, were all three-masted; the ferry-boats and 
harbor-service steamers were built high up out of the water 
with large deck-houses, out of which protruded the engines, 
seesawing up and down. 

58 



From the Battery to Trinity 

The great cities of New York and Brooklyn began to 
outline themselves against the clear sky. As you enter 
London from the Thames, you see little but a few ghost- 
like spires, glimmering in a vast canopy of smoke. New 
York and Brooklyn stand out clear and smokeless against 
the blue of the heavens. The two cities are profiled along 
the shores of the bay and the Hudson River, and a strange, 
jagged profile it is. Brooklyn combines into a fairly even 
mass of buildings, half yellow-gray, half chocolate, with 
a fringe of masts along the water. Then the heap of 
buildings slowly parts asunder in the middle ; you see the 
opening of the East River, the frontier of the two cities, 
and the slim lines of the Suspension Bridge. But New 
York combines into no color and no sky-line. Here is 
a red mass of brick, there a gray spire, there a bright white 
pile of building — twenty stories of serried windows — 
there again a gilded dome. Gradually they disengage 
themselves as you pass up the river in a line apparently 
endless. The rest of the city lies huddled beneath them — 
these buildings, too, many colored, all uneven, each one 
seemingly struggling to shoot up alongside of the giants 
at its side. That is the first impression of New York, if 
impression it can be called. The truth is that New York 
yields no impression; the big buildings and the little 
buildings will not come into the same view. It dazzles, 
and it astonishes, but it does not make a picture. 

G. W. Steevens in The Land of the Dollar 

Ellis Island ^^^i*' -^^b^ ^=^ 'Qy ^^^ '^c^*- 

' I ^HE gay spirits soon flag when land is heralded; 

-*- for Ellis Island is ahead, with its uncertainties, and 

the men and women who were the merriest and who 

59 



The Wayfarer in New York 

most often went to the bar, thus trying to forget, now 
are sober, and reflect. The troubled ones are usually 
marked by their restless walk and by their eagerness to 
seek the confidences of those who have tested the temper 
of the law in this unknown Eldorado. . . . 

At last the great heart of the ship has ceased its mighty 
throbbing, and but a gentle tremor tells that its life has not 
all been spent in the battle with wind and waves. The 
waters are of a quieter color, and over them hovers the 
morning mist. The silence of the early dawn is broken 
only by the sound of deep-chested ferry-boats which pass 
into the mist and out of it, like giant monsters, stalking on 
their cross beams over the deep. The steerage is awake 
after its restless night and mutely awaits the disclosures 
of its own and the new world's secrets. The sound of 
a booming gun is carried across the hidden space, and 
faint touches of flame struggling through the gray, are the 
sun's answer to the salute from Governor's Island. The 
morning breeze, like a "Dancing Psaltress," moves gently 
over the glassy surface of the water, lifts the fog higher and 
higher, tearing it into a thousand fleecy shreds, and the 
far things have come near and the hidden things have been 
revealed. The sky line straight ahead, assaulted by a 
thousand towering shafts, looking like a challenge to the 
strong, and a warning to the weak, makes all of us tremble 
from an unknown fear. 

The steerage is still mute ; it looks to the left at the pop- 
ulous shore, to the right at the green stretches of Long 
Island, and again straight ahead at the mighty city. Slowly 
the ship glides into the harbor, and when it passes under the 
shadow of the Statue of Liberty the silence is broken and 
a thousand hands are outstretched in greeting to this 
60 



From the Battery to IVinity 

new divinity into whose keeping they now entrust them- 
selves. 

Some day a great poet will arise among us, who, catching 
the inspiration of that moment, will be able to put into 
words these surging emotions; who will be great enough 
to feel beating against his own soul and give utterance to, 
the thousand varying notes which are felt and never 
sounded. . , . 

He who thinks that these people scent but the dollars 
which lie in our treasury, is mightily mistaken, and he who 
says that they come without ideals has no knowledge of 
the children of men. . . . 

Cabin and steerage passengers alike soon find the poetry 
of the moment disturbed ; for the quarantine and custom- 
house officials are on board, driving away the tourist's 
memories of the splendor of European capitals by their 
inquisitiveness as to his purchases. They make him 
solemnly swear that he is not a smuggler, and upon land- 
ing immediately proceed to prove that he is one. 

The steerage passengers have before them more rigid 
examinations which may have vast consequences; so in 
spite of the joyous notes of the band, and the glad greetings 
shouted to and fro, they sink again into awe-struck and 
confused silence. When the last cabin passenger has dis- 
appeared from the dock, the immigrants with their baggage 
are loaded into barges and taken to Ellis Island for their 
final examination. . . . 

The barges on which the immigrants are towed towards 
the island are of a somewhat antiquated pattern, and if 
I remember rightly have done service in the Castle Garden 
days, and before that some of them at least had done full 
service for excursion parties up and down Long Island 
6i 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Sound. The structure towards which we sail and which 
gradually rises from the surrounding sea is rather imposing, 
and impresses one by its utilitarian dignity and by its 
plainly expressed official character. 

With tickets fastened to our caps and to the dresses of 
the women, and with our own bills of lading in our trem- 
bling hands, we pass between rows of uniformed attendants, 
and under the huge portal of the vast hall where the final 
judgment awaits us. We are cheered somewhat by the 
fact that assistance is promised to most of us by the agents 
of various National Immigrant Societies who seem both 
watchful and efficient. 

Mechanically and with quick movements we are ex- 
amined for general physical defects and for the dreaded 
trachoma, an eye disease, the prevalence of which is greater 
in the imagination of some statisticians than it is on board 
immigrant vessels. 

From here we pass into passageways made by iron rail- 
ings, in which only lately, through the intervention of 
a humane official, benches have been placed, upon which, 
closely crowded, we await our passing before the inspectors. 

Already a sifting process has taken place; and children 
who clung to their mother's skirts have disappeared, 
families have been divided, and those remaining intact 
cling to each other in a really tragic fear that they may 
share the fate of those previously examined. . . . 

The decision one way or the other must be quickly made, 
and the immigrant finds himself in a jail-like room often 
without knowing just why. There is not much time for 
explanation. , . . 

The most melancholy of all men are the detained Jews, 
for they usually have strong family ties which already bind 
62 



From the Battery to Trinity 

them to this new world, and they chafe under the delay. 
Their children or friends are waiting impatiently, crowd- 
ing beyond their allotted limit, trying the severely taxed 
patience of the officials, asking useless questions, and 
wasting precious time in waiting ; for the courts work their 
allotted tasks with dispatch, but with care and dignity; 
and all must wait in deep uncertainty through the long 
vigil of a restless night spent on the clean, but not too com- 
fortable bunks provided by the government. 

Let no one believe that landing on the shores of "The 
land of the free, and the home of the brave" is a pleasant 
experience ; it is a hard, harsh fact, surrounded by the grind- 
ing machinery of the law, which sifts, picks, and chooses; 
admitting the fit and excluding the weak and helpless. 

Edward A. Steiner 
Copyright, igo6, by Fleming H. Revell Company 

The Financial Centre of America ^:> ^^ ^c> 

FINANCE, more perhaps than any other kind of 
business, draws to few points, and New York, which 
has as little claim to be social or intellectual as to be 
the political capital of the country, is emphatically its 
financial capital. And as the centre of America is New 
York, so the centre of New York is Wall Street. This 
famous thoroughfare is hardly a quarter of a mile long, 
a little longer than Lombard Street in London. It con- 
tains the Sub-Treasury of the United States and the Stock 
Exchange. In it and the three or four streets that open 
into it are situated the Produce Exchange, the offices of 
the great railways, and the places of business of the 
financiers and stockbrokers, together representing an ac- 
cumulation of capital and intellect comparable to the 

63 



The Wayfarer in New York 

capital and intellect of London, and destined before many 
years to surpass every similar spot in either hemisphere. 
Wall Street is the great nerve centre of all American busi- 
ness; for finance and transportation, the two determining 
powers in business, have here their headquarters. It is 
also the financial barometer of the country, which every 
man engaged in large affairs must constantly consult, 
and whose only fault is that it is too sensitive to slight and 
transient variations of pressure. 

The share market of New York, or rather of the whole 
Union, in "the Street," as it is fondly named, is the most 
remarkable sight in the country after Niagara and the 
Yellowstone Geysers. It is not unlike those geysers in 
the violence of its explosions, and in the rapid rise and 
equally rapid subsidence of its active paroxysms. And as 
the sparkling column of the geyser is girt about and often 
half concealed by volumes of steam, so are the rise and fall 
of stocks mostly surrounded by mists and clouds of rumor, 
some purposely created, some self-generated in the at- 
mosphere of excitement, curiosity, credulity, and suspicion 
which the denizens of Wall Street breathe. Opinions 
change from moment to moment; hope and fear are 
equally vehement and equally irrational; men are con- 
stant only in inconstancy, superstitious because they are 
sceptical, distrustful of patent probabilities, and therefore 
ready to trust their own fancies or some unfathered tale. 
As the eagerness and passion of New York leave European 
stock markets far behind, for what the Paris and London 
exchanges are at rare moments Wall Street is for weeks, 
or perhaps, with a few intermissions, for months together, 
so the operations of Wall Street are vaster, more boldly 
conceived, executed with a steadier precision, than those 
64 



From the Battery to Trinity 

of European speculators. It is not only their bearing on 
the prosperity of railroads or other great undertakings 
that is eagerly watched all over the country, but also their 
personal and dramatic aspects. The various careers and 
characters of the leading operators are familiar to every 
one who reads a newspaper; his schemes and exploits are 
followed as Europe followed the fortunes of Prince Alexan- 
der of Battenburg or General Boulanger. A great "corner," 
for instance, is one of the exciting events of the year, not 
merely to those concerned with the stock or species of 
produce in which it is attempted but to the public at large. 
James Bryce in The American Commonwealth 

Pan in Wall Street ^^ -^^i^ <:> -s> -!C> 

A.D. 1867 

JUST where the Treasury's marble front 
Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations, — 
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont 

To throng for trade and last quotations, — 
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold 

Outrival, in the ears of people, 
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled 
From Trinity's undaunted steeple; — 

Even there I heard a strange, wild strain 

Sound high above the modern clamor. 
Above the cries of greed and gain, 

The curbstone war, the auction's hammer, — 
And swift, on Music's misty ways, 

It led, from all this strife for millions, 
To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days 

Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians. 

F 65 



The Wayfarer in New York 

And as it stilled the multitude, 

And yet more joyous rose, and shriller, 
I saw the minstrel where he stood 

At ease against a Doric pillar: 
One hand a droning organ played. 

The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned 
Like those of old) to lips that made 

The reeds give out that strain impassioned. 

'Twas Pan himself had wandered here 

A-strolling through this sordid city, 
And piping to the civic ear 

The prelude of some pastoral ditty ! 
The demigod had crossed the seas, — 

From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr. 
And Syracusan times, — to these 

Far shores and twenty centuries later. 

A ragged cap was on his head: 

But — hidden thus — there was no doubting 
That, all with crispy locks o'erspread. 

His gnarled horns were somewhere sprouting; 
His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes. 

Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them. 
And trousers, patched of divers hues. 

Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them. 

He filled the quivering reeds with sound, 
And o'er his mouth their changes shifted, 

And with his goat's-eyes looked around 
Where'er the passing current drifted; 

And soon, as on Trinacrian hills 

The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him, 
06 



From the Battery to Trinity 

Even now the tradesmen from their tills, 
With clerks and porters, crowded near him. 

The bulls and bears together drew 

From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, 
As erst, if pastorals be true. 

Came beasts from every wooded valley; 
The random passers stayed to list, — 

A boxer Aegon, rough and merry, — 
A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst 

With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry. 

A one-eyed Cyclops halted long 

In tattered cloak of army pattern, 
And Galatea joined the throng, — 

A blowsy, apple-vending slattern; 
While old Silenus staggered out 

From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, 
And bade the piper, with a shout. 

To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy! 

A newsboy and a peanut-girl 

Like little Fauns began to caper: 
His hair was all in tangled curl, 

Her tawny legs were bare and taper; 
And still the gathering larger grew, 

And gave its pence and crowded nigher, 
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew 

His pipe, and struck the gamut higher. 

O heart of Nature, beating still 

With throbs her vernal passion taught her, - 
Even here, as on the vine-clad hill. 

Or by the Arethusan water ! 
67 



The Wayfarer in New York 

New forms may fold the speech, new lands 

Arise within these ocean-portals, 
But Music waves eternal wands, — 

Enchantress of the souls of mortals ! 

So thought I, — but among us trod 

A man in blue, with legal baton, 
And scoffed the vagrant demigod. 

And pushed him from the step I sat on. 
Doubting I mused upon the cry, 

''Great Pan is dead !" — and all the people 
Went on their ways : — and clear and high 

The quarter sounded from the steeple. 

E. C. Stedman 

New York in a Fog ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^=^ ^^^ 

npHE fog groped and felt its way along the water front. 

■^ Then it crept up to the throat of the city, like a gray 

hand, and strangled Broadway into an ominous quietness. 

It tightened its grip, as the day grew older, leaving the 
cross-streets from Union Square to the Battery clotted with 
congested traffic. It brought on an untimely protest of 
blinking street-lamps, as uncannily bewildering as the mid- 
day cock-crowing of a solar eclipse. It caused the vague 
and shadowy walls of sky-scrapers to blossom into countless 
yellow window tiers, as close-packed as the scales of a snake. 
Bells sounded from gloom-wrapt shipping along the saw- 
tooth line of the river-slips, tolling the watches and falling 
silent and tolling again, as they might have tolled in mid- 
ocean, or on some lonely waterway that led to the utter- 
most ends of the earth. 

Now and then, out of the distance, a river-ferry or a car- 
68 



From the Battery to Trinity 

float tug could be heard growling and whimpering for room, 
as it wrangled over its right-of-way. Everything moved 
slowly through the muffled streets. Carriages crept across 
the sepulchral quietness with a strange and uncouth rever- 
ence, like tourists through a catacomb. Surface cars, crawl- 
ing funereally forward, felt their way with gong -strokes, as 
blind men feel their way with sticktaps. An occasional 
taxicab, swinging tentatively out of a side-street, slewed 
and skidded in the greasy mud. Lonely drivers watched 
from their seats, watched like sea captains from bridge- 
ends when ice has invaded their sea lanes. 

Under the gas-lamps, dulled to a reddish yellow, passed 
a thin scattering of pedestrians. A touch of desolation 
clung about each figure that groped its way through the 
short-vistaed street, as though the thoroughfare it trod were 
a lonely moraine and the figure itself the last man that 
walked a ruin world. It was the worst fog that New York 
had known for years ; the city lay under it like a mummy 
swathed in gray. 

Yet the gloom seemed to crown it with a new wonder, 
to endow it with a new dignity. That all too shallow 
tongue of land that is lipped by the East and North rivers 
took on strange and undreamt-of distances. It lay en- 
gulfed in twilight mysteries, enriched with unlooked-for 
possibilities. Its narrow acres of brick and stone and 
asphalt became something unbounded and infinite, as 
bewildering and wide as the open Atlantic. It seemed 
to harbor fantastic potentialities. It seemed to release 
the spirit of romance, as moonlight unfetters a lover's 
lips. 

Yet Lingg, the wireless operator of the Laminian, be- 
came more and more alarmed at the opacity of this fog. 
69 



The Wayfarer in New York 

He felt, as he burrowed mole-like across the mist-blanketed 
city, that he had been a fool to leave the ship . . . 

He hurried along the fog-wrapt canons, still haunted by 
the impression of some unknown figure dogging his steps. 
He felt, as night and the fog deepened together, that the 
city was nothing more than a many-channelled river-bed, 
and that he waded along its bottom, breathing a new ele- 
ment, too thick for air, too etherealised for water. He saw 
streets that were new to him, streets where the misted 
globes of electric lights became an undulating double row 
of white tulips. Then he stumbled into Broadway. But 
it was a Broadway with the soft pedal on. Its roar of 
sound was so muffled he scarcely knew it. Then he came 
to a square where the scattered lamp-globes looked like 
bubbles of gold caught in tree -branches. Under these 
tree-branches he saw loungers on benches, mysterious and 
motionless figures, like broken rows of statuary, sleeping 
men in the final and casual attitudes of death. Above 
these figures he could see wet maple-leaves, hanging as 
still and lifeless as though they had been stencilled from 
sheets of green copper. His eyes fell on floating street- 
signs, blurs of colored electrics cut off from the invisible 
walls which backed them. He caught glimpses of the 
softened bulbs of automatic signs, like moving gold-fish 
seen through frosted glass. Then he saw more lights, 
serried lights, subdued into balloons of misty pearl. They 
threaded the fafade of some gigantic hotel, like jewel- 
strings about the throat of a barbaric woman. But he 
could not remember the place. And again he floundered 
on towards the water front, disquieted with vague and 
foolish thoughts, as much oppressed by the orderly streets 
as though he were escaping from some sea-worn harbor 
70 



From the Battery to Trinity 

slum of vice and outlawry. He still wanted his cabin, as 
a long-harried chipmunk wants its tree-hole. 

Arthur Stringer in The Gun Runner 
Copyright, iQog, by B. W. Dodge &» Co. 

The Red Box at Vesey Street ^;> ^^ ^^ 

■pAST the Red Box at Vesey Street 

-^ Swing two strong tides of hurrying feet, 

And up and down and all the day 

Rises a sullen roar, to say 

The Bowery has met Broadway. 

And where the confluent current brawls 

Stands, fair and dear and old, St. Paul's, 

Through her grand window looking down 

Upon the fever of the town; 

Rearing her shrine of patriot pride 

Above that hungry human-tide 

Mad with the lust of sordid gain, 

Wild for the things that God holds vain; 

Blind, selfish, cruel — Stay there ! out 

A man is turning from the rout, 

And stops to drop a folded sheet 

In the Red Box at Vesey Street. 

On goes he to the money-mart, 
A broker, shrewd and tricky -smart ; 
But in the space you saw him stand, 
He reached and grasped a brother's hand: 
And some poor bed-rid wretch will find 
Bed-life a little less unkind 
For that man's stopping. They who pass 
Under St. Paul's broad roseate glass 
71 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Have but to reach their hands to gain 
The pitiful world of prisoned pain. 
The hospital's poor captive lies 
Waiting the day with weary eyes, 
Waiting the day, to hear again 
News of the outer world of men. 
Brought to him in a crumpled sheet 
From the Red Box at Vesey Street. 

For the Red Box at Vesey Street 

Was made because men's hearts must beat; 

Because the humblest kindly thought 

May do what wealth has never bought. 

That journal in your hand you hold 

To you already has grown old, — 

Stale, dull, a thing to throw away, — 

Yet since the earliest gleam of day 

Men in a score of hospitals 

Have lain and watched the whitewashed walls; 

Waiting the hour that brings more near 

The Life so infinitely dear — 

The Life of trouble, toil, and strife. 

Hard, if you will — but Life, Life, Life ! 

Tell them, O friend ! that life is sweet 

Through the Red Box at Vesey Street. 

H. C. BUISTNER 

Copyright, i8q6, by Charles Scribner's Sons 

The Exchanges ^:> -<;> -;^ ^;:> -c^ 

THE Stock Exchange is the one usually visited by 
the country cousins in Gotham, who sometimes 
come away with the impression that they have seen a 
72 



From the Battery to Trinity 

lunatic asylum temporarily freed from the restraint of 
the keepers. The method of bidding, with its suggestion 
of insanity in the action, and cries of the bidders, seems 
as necessary to the Stock Exchange as hammering and 
noise to a boiler shop. It is not, however, so hysterical or 
frenzied as it looks. Most of the cry is physical and has 
for its aim the recognition of the crier as a bidder. To those 
in the thick of the bidding it is often as matter-of-fact as 
the loud announcement of the train ushers in the railway 
stations, or the street cry of the newsboys or fruit hawkers. 

Moreover (to shatter another delusion), the operators 
down below on the floor are not the Wall Street capitalists 
whose names are so familiar, and whose stock manipula- 
tions are read about in newspapers. On the contrary, th-^y 
are merely the executants of orders, called ''floor-brokers." 
Among them are ''board members" of large firms, who 
are looking to it that orders are properly filled; sub- 
commission men, who work for other brokers and take 
a slice of the commission; and "room traders," who are 
sometimes used as stalking horses by large firms to cover 
up their transactions. They are all either bulls or bears, 
and are intent upon lifting up or beating down the market, 
as their interest may lie. They make a great noise and 
transact a large volume of business; but the people for 
whom they are doing business do not appear on the floor, 
are not seen. 

The Produce Exchange on Beaver Street and Broadway 
does for all manner of produce substantially what the 
Stock Exchange does for stocks. That is to say, its mem- 
bers buy and sell, in a "pit," or depressed ring in the floor, 
wheat, oats, barley, corn, feed, flour, tallow, oil, lard, 
turpentine, resin — all manner of general produce. There 
7Z 



The Wayfarer in New York 

is also a great deal of miscellaneous and contingent business 
transacted within the building. Sales of cargoes, arrange- 
ments for shipping, lighterage, insurance, may be speedily 
made and concluded without leaving the exchange. Re- 
ports from all sources are collected and bulletined, quota- 
tions here and abroad are given, prospects of growing crops 
with daily and weekly receipts in New York, and stock on 
hand in London and elsewhere are announced. The 
volume of business continues to grow each year at an as- 
tounding rate. The exchange itself profits by this. It 
started in small beginnings, under the blue sky, on the side- 
walk. It was not formally known as the Produce Ex- 
change until 1868, and it did not move into its present 
massive building until 1884. Since then its membership 
has increased to several thousands; and its influence upon 
trade and transportation has become most potent. 

The Maritime Exchange is closely connected with the 
Produce Exchange. Its business is to promote the maritime 
interests of the city; and those who do business on or with 
the sea — agents, shippers, commission merchants, ware- 
housemen, importers, brokers, marine underwriters, ship- 
chandlers — are eligible for membership. The exchange 
keeps records of the arrivals and departures of ships, their 
movements about the world, and their sudden exits by 
fire or storm. It also keeps tables of the imports and ex- 
ports, regulates and reports upon navigation and light- 
houses, and promotes favorable river and harbor legisla- 
tion. The Customs House and the Post-Office, as well 
as the newspapers, get much of the news about the come 
and go of shipping from this source. 

Akin to these exchanges are others dealing with the 
special needs and wants of special industries. The Con- 
74 



From the Battery to Trinity 

solidated Stock and Petroleum Exchange, among other 
things, affords every faciHty and every information for the 
sale and shipping of petroleum. Each year the sales there 
run up to something over a billion barrels. The Cotton 
Exchange on Beaver Street deals in everything connected 
with the cotton industry and the marketing of the product. 
The Builders' Exchange has to do with the buying and 
selHng of all kinds of building supplies, such as cement, 
brick, stone, and the like; while the Metal Exchange on 
Pearl Street, the Wool Exchange on West Broadway, the 
Fruit Exchange on Park Place, the Brewers' Exchange on 
East Fifteenth Street, The Silk Association, the Shoe and 
Leather Exchange, all serve a purpose in promoting business 
in those commodities. Then there is that old-time gather- 
ing of jewelers on Maiden Lane about the Jewelers' Board 
of Trade, with the pre-Revolutionary Chamber of Com- 
merce now on Liberty Street, and a Fire Insurance Ex- 
change on Nassau Street. 

John. C. Van Dyke in The New New York 

Old Trinity Churchyard ^^:i>' ^=^ <:> ^^:> 

nPHERE is no pleasanter spot in New York than the 
-■- churchyard of old Trinity on a quiet Sunday morn- 
ing in the summer. There are flowers and grasses, 
the shade of graceful elms, fresh air, and the twittering 
of birds — even the oriole and the robin still come back there 
every year in spite of the aggressive sparrow — and there 
is no end of companionship. It is a companionship which 
I like, because it is open and free. Here every man, woman 
and child, except the unquiet prowlers above ground, 
presents to our eyes a card of granite or marble, gravely 
telling his or her name, age and a few other particulars set 
75 



The Wayfarer in New York 

forth, more or less elaborately — a quaint custom, but not 
a bad one for the living to adopt, if they would be equally 
frank about it. 

Even in the days when the present church building was 
new — more than fifty years ago by the calendar — I 
found no more pleasant place in which to pass a half-hour 
as a boy. It was a more unkempt place then than now, 
and bluebirds and thrushes were more frequent visitors. 
I found an endless pleasure in tracing the inscriptions on 
the tombstones, and it was not long before I had famiHar 
acquaintances, heroes and heroines, in every corner. Huge 
was my delight, too, when, with two or three companions, 
we could escape the eye of old David Lyon, the sexton, and 
hie down into the crypt beneath the chancel. There we 
saw yawning mouths of vaults, revealing to our exploring 
gaze bits of ancient coffins and forgotten mortality, and 
we poked about these subterranean corridors with dusty 
jackets and whispered words, finding its atmosphere of 
mould and mystery a strange delight. For somehow the 
unknown sleepers, they who seemed to have no means of 
making themselves known — unless it was through the 
musty tomes of Trinity's burial records — took strongest 
hold upon our sympathies, to say nothing of our curiosity. 

Everybody who passes old St. Paul's can read for him- 
self the patriotism of General Montgomery, the civic 
virtues of Thomas Addis Emmet and the eminence of 
Dr. McNevin, for monument and shaft tell the story. 
So all visitors to the churchyard of old Trinity easily learn 
which are the tombstones of Alexander Hamilton, Captain 
Lawrence, of the Chesapeake, or William Bradford, the 
first Colonial printer, and where rest the bones of quiet 
Robert Fulton, the inventor, or dashing Phil Kearney; but 
76 



From the Battery to Trinity- 
there is no herald of the ordinary dead — of those who were 
simply upright men and good women in their day — and 
there could be none of the unknown dead who are said to 
far outnumber the lucky minority, the front doors to whose 
graves still stand and yet preserve their door plate, though 

the latch-key is gone. 

John F. Mines 

In Old Trinity ^c> ^v> ^Qy ^v::y -Qy 

A spare half-hour before closing time we gave to the 
-^■^ Stock Exchange, and it was quite enough, for some 
one was short on something, and pandemonium reigned. 
As we stood on the corner of Rector Street and Broadway, 
hesitating whether to take surface or elevated cars, faint 
strains of organ music from Trinity attracted us. 

"Service or choir practice; let us go in a few moments," 
said Evan, to whom the organ is a voice that never fails to 
draw. 

We took seats far back, and lost ourselves among the 
shadows. A special service was in progress, the music 
half Gregorian, and the congregation was too scattered 
to mar the feeling that we had slipped suddenly out of the 
material world. The shadows of the sparrows outside 
flitted upward on the stained glass windows, until it seemed 
as if the great chords had broken free, and, taking form, were 
trying to escape. 

Now and then the door would open softly and unac- 
customed figures slip in and Hnger in the open space behind 
the pews. Aliens, newly landed and wandering about in 
the vicinity of their water-front lodging-houses, music and 
a church appealed to their loneliness. Some stood, heads 
bowed, and some knelt in prayer and crossed themselves on 
77 



The Wayfarer in New York 

leaving; one woman, lugging a great bundle tied in a blue 
cloth, a baby on her arm and another clinging to her skirts, 
put down her load, bedded the baby upon it, and began 
to tell her beads. 

The service ended, and the people scattered, but the 
organist played on, and the boy choir regathered, but less 
formally. 

"What is it ? " we asked of the verger, who was preparing 
to close the doors. 

** There will be a funeral of one of the oldest members of 
the congregation to-morrow, and they are about to go 
through the music of the office." 

Suddenly a rich bass voice, strong in conviction, trum- 
peted forth — ''I am the resurrection and the life !" 
And only a stone's throw away jingled the money 
market of the western world. The temple 
and the table of the money changers keep 
step as of old. Ah, wonderful New York ! 
Mabel Osgood Wright in 
People of the Whirlpool 



78 



II 

WITHIN HALF A MILE OF CITY HALL 



T 



NEW BUILDINGS 

'HE turrets leap higher and higher, 
And the Httle old homes go down; 
The workmen pound on the iron and steel — 
The woodpeckers of the town. 

Charles Hanson Towne 
Copyright, jgo8, by the B. W. Dodge Co. 



II 

WITHIN HALF A MILE OF CITY HALL 

New York's Greatest Pageant ^s> ^o -«::^ 

TT was the civic procession in honor of the adoption of 
■■- the Federal Constitution, of which all similar celebra- 
tions since attempted have proved but feeble imitations. 

The morning of the 23rd of July, 1878, was ushered 
in by a federal salute of thirteen guns from the ship Hamil- 
ton^ moored at the Bowling Green. This was the signal 
for the procession to form. Having been arranged in 
proper order, the whole assemblage was wheeled into 
column, and marched down Broadway and Whitehall to 
Great Dock Street; thence through Hanover Square, 
Great Queen and Chatham Streets to the Bowery; and 
thence to ''Bayard's Farm," where the procession halted 
and was again wheeled into line. The different divisions 
of it were conducted to the tents in which tables had been 
prepared. Here they were honored with the company 
of the president and members of the Continental Congress, 
then sitting in this city, and others of distinction. . . . 

Some features of the procession, which my memory re- 
tains, may prove sufficiently interesting to reward your 
patience. . . . 

First, there appeared no less renowned a personage than 
Christopher Columbus, represented on this occasion by 
a certain Captain Moore, who was selected for the part 

G 81 



The Wayfarer in New York 

from the striking resemblance he bore to the portraits of 
the Great Navigator. He was followed by those eminent 
experimental farmers, Nicolas Crueger and John Watts: 
the former very skilfully conducting a plough upon wheels, 
drawn by several fine yokes of oxen; the latter guiding 
with equal adroitness a toothless harrow, drawn — not the 
teeth, but the harrow — by one yoke of oxen and a pair 
of horses. Next in my recollection, though not perhaps 
in the order of march, was borne on horseback, by Capt. 
Anthony Walton White, a golden eagle, bearing a shield 
on its breast emblazoned with the arms of the United States. 
This was the banner of the Society of Cincinnati, the mem- 
bers of which followed in their well-sewed Revolutionary 
regimentals. 

Then came the members of the several professions and 
trades, with their appropriate ensigns and badges; the 
workmen mounted upon lofty and capacious stages erected 
upon wheel-carriages, each drawn by several pairs of horses. 
The men upon these elevated machines worked — or 
seemed to work — at their respective trades. The Coopers 
were setting up and hooping a huge cask, emblematical 
of the Constitution. The Carpenters were in the act of 
erecting the eleventh column, inscribed ''New York,'* 
of a pediment already supported by ten representing the 
States that had ratified the Constitution, and were at work 
on two others lying prostrate, emblematical of the two 
States who hesitated to adopt it. The Upholsterers were 
preparing the chair of state for the first President. The 
Coachmakers were building him a superb chariot. The 
Ship-Carpenters were finishing models of vessels for the 
U. S. Navy; the Blockmakers were boring pumps, turning 
blocks and fitting sheaves for them ; the Ropemakers were 
82 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

laying cables; the Blacksmiths were forging anchors; the 
Sail-makers and Riggers were at work upon sails and 
rigging; the Mathematical-Instrument-Makers upon quad- 
rants and compasses, all for the ''Federal Fleet." The 
Cutlers were burnishing swords, the Lacemakers were 
making epaulettes and the Tailors uniforms, for both army 
and navy — so deeply at that early day was the public 
mind impressed with the necessity of both for the defense 
of the country, the assertion of her territorial and maritime 
rights; and the maintenance of the national honor. The 
Drum-Manufacturers and other Musical-Instrument-Makers 
were also employed with a view to the public service ; while 
the Printers were striking off and distributing patriotic 
songs, and a programme of the ceremony which has been 
of material use in refreshing my memory in regard to it. 

The most interesting, as well as the most conspicuous 
object in the procession was undoubtedly the ** Federal 
Ship" — the miniature presentment of a two-and-thirty 
gun frigate, about thirty feet keel and ten beam, with every- 
thing complete and in proportion in her hull, rigging, sails 
and armament. She was manned by about forty seamen 
and marines, besides the usual complement of ofl&cers. 
The veteran commander, James Nicholson, of Revolu- 
tionary memory, was her commander, and she bore the 
same broad pennant at the main which had floated victori- 
ously over his head upon the ocean. But although once 
more on board ship, the old commodore was not exactly 
in his element, as his ship was navigated more by means 
of wheels and several pairs of stout horses than by wind 
and sails. He nevertheless displayed great seamanship 
in her management. When she had reached the roadstead 
abreast of the encampment, she took in sail and anchored in 
83 



The Wayfarer in New York 

close order with the rest of the procession ; the officers off 
duty going on shore to dine, while ample messes were sent 
to those on board, and for the rest of the crew. 

At 4 P.M., she again made the signal for unmooring, by 
another salute of thirteen guns, and shortly after got under 
way with her convoy. The manner in which she made her 
passage through the straits of Bayard's Lane was highly 
interesting and satisfactory, being obliged to run under 
her fore-tops' 1 in a squall, and afterwards to heave to, to 
reef them all before she ventured to set her courses and bear 
up for the Broadway channel. Her subsequent manoeuvres 
were not unattended with peril — but by the good conduct 
of her officers and men, and the skill of Mat Daniels, the 
pilot, she arrived in safety at her former moorings, amid 
the acclamations of thousands, who, by repeated cheers, 
testified their approbation of the gallant old commodore 
and his crew in weathering the storm and bringing the 
"Federal Ship" safely into port. In the evening there was 
a general illumination; with a display of fireworks in the 
Bowling Green, under the direction of Colonel Bauman, 
poet-master of the city, and commandant of artillery, whose 
constitutional irascibility was exceedingly provoked by 
the moon, which shone with pertinacious brilliance, as 
if in mockery of his feebler lights. 

William Alexander Duer in 

an Address to the St. Nicholas Society 



T 



Spring in Town ^:> ^> ^^^ ^^ 

*HE country ever has a lagging Spring, 
Waiting for May to call its violets forth, 
And June its roses; showers and sunshine bring, 
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er earth; 
84 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

To put their foliage out, the woods are slack, 
And one by one the singing birds come back. 

Within the city's bounds the time of flowers 
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day 

Such as full often, for a few bright hours. 

Breathes through the sky of March the airs of May 

Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry gloom — 

And lo ! our borders glow with sudden bloom. 

For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are then 
Gorgeous as are a rivulet's banks in June, 

That overhung with blossoms, through its glen, 
Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon. 

And they who search the untrodden wood for flowers 

Meet in its depths no lovelier ones than ours. 

From Spring in Town by William Cullen Bryant 

As a Young Reporter Sees Nevir York ^Qy ^:> 
T^OWN along the East River water front the big, 
^^ brave ships from far-away foreign ports rest at 
ease, with their bowsprits slouching out half way across 
South Street. Quaint figure-heads are on their bows, and 
on their sterns names still more quaint and full of soft 
vowels which mean something in some part of the seven 
seas; brigs from the West Indies and barks from South 
Africa; Nova Scotia schooners and full-rigged clipper 
ships from Calcutta and from San Francisco by way of 
the Horn. 

Here the young reporter liked to prowl about when out on 
a weather story, looking at the different foreign flags and at 
the odd foreign cargoes unloading in strangely-wrought ship- 
ping boxes which smelled of spices, and wondering about the 
8s 



The Wayfarer in New York 

voyage over and about the private history of the bare -footed, 
underfed sailors who made it. The stevedores' derricks 
puffed and creaked, and far overhead the cars on the bridge 
rumbled on, but the big ships seemed calm and patient, 
and full of mystery, as if they knew too many wondrous 
things to be impressed by anything in America. But all 
this had nothing to do with the weather story, or how the 
fog was affecting the shipping, or how much behind their 
schedule the ferry-boats were running, or whether (by 
good fortune) there had been any collisions in the river. 
That was what he was down there for. 

Then, too, he used to have some good times when his 
assignment took him over into what used to be Greenwich; 
along old, crooked, narrow, village-like streets running all 
sorts of directions and crossing each other where they had 
no right to; where the shops and people and the whole 
atmosphere still seemed removed and village-Hke. He had 
a lot of fun looking out for old houses with lovable door- 
ways and fanlights and knockers, and sometimes good white 
Greek columns. And then, up along East Broadway, 
which was once so fashionable and is now so forlorn, with 
dirty cloakmakers in the spacious drawing-rooms and 
signs in Hebrew characters in the windows. He used to 
gaze at them as he walked by and dream about the old 
days of early century hospitality there ; the queer clothes 
the women wore and the strong punch the men drank, and 
the stilted conversation they both liked, instead of planning 
how to work up his story, and then with a shock would 
discover that he had passed the house where he was to 
push in and ask a woman if it was true that her husband 
had run away with another man's wife; and the worst of 
it was that they generally talked about it. 
86 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

Not that all his assignments were disagreeable. There 
was the bright, windy day he was sent down to the proving- 
grounds on Sandy Hook to write about the new disappear- 
ing gun-carriage (which covered him and the rest of the 
party with yellow powder-dust), and he lunched with the 
Secretary of the Navy, who was very jolly and gave 
him a half-column interview. There was Izizim, the 
pipe-maker, on Third Avenue, and the Frenchman on 
Twenty-Third Street, who taught skirt-dancing ; and there 
was his good friend, Garri-Boulu, the old Hindoo sailor, who 
had landed on one of the big Calcutta ships, suffering with 
beriberi, and was now slowly dying in the Presbyterian 
Hospital because he wouldn't lose caste by eating meat, 
and was so polite that he cried for fear he was giving the 
young doctors too much trouble. It took him into odd 
places, this news-gathering, and made him meet queer 
people, and it was a fascinating life for all its disagreeable- 
ness, and it was never monotonous, for it was never alike 
two days in succession. It was full of contrasts — almost 
dramatic contrasts, sometimes. One afternoon he was 
sent to cover a convention of spiritualists who wore their 
hair long; that evening, a meeting of the Association of 
Liquor Dealers, who had huge black mustaches; and the 
next day he was one of a squad of men under an old ex- 
perienced reporter up across the Harlem River at work on 
a murder ''mystery," smoking cigars with Central Office 
detectives and listening to the afternoon-paper men, who, 
in lieu of real news, made up theories for one edition which 
they promptly tore down in the next. That evening found 
him within the sombre walls of the New York Foundling 
Hospital up on Lexington Avenue, asking questions of 
soft-voiced sisters and talking with wise young doctors 
87 



The Wayfarer in New York 

about an epidemic of measles which was killing off the 

babies. 

He liked all this. He thought it was because he was 

a sociologist; but it was because he was a boy. It gave 

him a thrill to go down into a cellar after murder-clews with 

a detective, just as it would any other full-blooded male. 

He was becoming good friends with some of these sleuths 

— most of whom, by the way, were not at all sleuth-like in 

appearance, and went about their day's work in very much 

the same matter-of-fact way as reporters and the rest of 

the town. 

Jesse L. Williams 

Copyright, iSgg, by Charles Scribner^s Sons 

The Poets of Printing House Square ^v:> ^v> 

A S jolly a lot of good fellows, I know, 
■^~^ As you'll meet in this journey of life, 
For their hearts are in tune and they sing as they go, 

In the midst of humanity's strife. 
And the day may be sunny or sodden and gray, 

And the world may be blooming or bare, 
The weary will always be cheered by a lay 

From the poets of Printing House Square. 

When the summer time comes with its mantle of green, . 

And the fountain is merry with song. 
Their rhymes flow as gayly and gently, I ween, 

As the day of the summer is long. 
Forgetful of winter's privation and cold. 

They bathe in the balm of the air. 
And the heart gathers hope from the song that is sold 

By the poet of Printing House Square. 
88 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

In the bleak winter days when the fountain is still, 

And the skies are forbidding and gray, 
He will sing of the summer to settle a bill, 

And pay for his coal with a lay. 
And the warmth and the music return ; — and the glow 

And the sheen of the summer are there. 
No winter can conquer the spirit, I know, 

Of the poet of Printing House Square. 

Some day when the rhyme of the seasons is done, 

And the rush of the riot is past — 
When the marvellous era of rest is begun, 

And our problems are finished at last; 
When our songs are all sung, and our debts are all paid 

And the heart slips its anchor of care, 
I only ask then that my name be arrayed 

With the poets of Printing House Square. 

Albert Bigelow Paine 
By permission of the Author 

A Broadway Pageant -o -<;:> ^;^. ^:iy 

/^VER the Western sea hither from Niphon come, 
^-^ Courteous, the swart-cheek'd two-sworded envoys. 
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, im- 
passive. 
Ride to-day through Manhattan. 

When million-footed Manhattan unpent descends to her 

pavements. 
When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud 

roar I love, 

89 



The Wayfarer in New York 

When the round-mouth'd guns out of the smoke and smell 

I love spit their salutes, 
When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me, and 

heaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze. 
When gorgeous the countless straight stems, the forests at 

the wharves, thicken with colors. 
When every ship richly drest carries her flag at the peak, 
When pennants trail and street-festoons hang from the 

windows. 
When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers 

and foot-standers, when the mass is densest. 
When the facades of the houses are aUve with people, when 

eyes gaze riveted tens of thousands at a time. 
When the guests from the islands advance, when the pageant 

moves forward visible. 
When the summons is made, when the answer that waited 

thousands of years answers, 
I too arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge 

with the crowd, and gaze with them. 

Walt Whitman 

The Tombs ^> ^o^y ^^ ^^ ^::> <^ 

T TRIED hard when in New York to avoid both the gaols 
-'- and the graveyards. To the latter I was fortunately 
able to give the widest of berths; but a darker fate 
befell me in the matter of the prisons. The obliging 
gentleman who introduced me some weeks since to the 
police magistrate at Jefferson-market Court insisted that, 
after having passed a morning with Justice, I should make 
a regular criminal day of it, and see the celebrated Prison 
of the Tombs. Not to be behindhand in hospitality, his 
worship the police justice himself pressingly urged me, 
90 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

before I went down town, to have a peep at his own partic- 
ular gaol in the Jefferson-market house. For a while I 
feebly resisted these invitations; but when an American 
has made up his mind to ''put" a stranger ** through," 
he means business, and is not to be deterred from carrying 
out his programme to the very letter. So, as an ante- 
chamber to the Tombs, I took a cursory view of the Jef- 
ferson-market Gaol, which occupies a very tall tower of 
brick and stone in the Italian Gothic style of architecture. 
The cells are airy, and not by any means cheerless; the 
inmates being permitted to read the newspapers and to 
smoke. But I should be discounting that which I have 
to say concerning American prison discipline were I to 
say more on the reading and smoking heads in connection 
with the Jefferson-market Gaol. The detenus were chiefly 
the ''drunk and incapables" and the "drunk and dis- 
orderlies," who had been committed for short terms in 
default of payment of their five and ten dollar fines. Some 
of them were not placed in the cells at all ; but were locked 
up in association in a large room, down each side of which 
ran a single tier of open wooden cribs or bunks furnished 
with a blanket and a coverlet, and where, chatting together 
quite gaily, they did not seem one whit more uncomfortable 
than the steerage passengers whom I had seen on board 
of the good ship Scythia. 

Some of the female prisoners were doing "chores," or 
light house-work, about the gaol, which was altogether 
very clean and comfortable-looking, and the strangest 
feature about which to me was that it was provided with 
a lift or elevator passing from tier to tier of cells. I mention 
this structural improvement for the benefit of the architects 
and surveyors of her Majesty's gaols in Great Britain. 
91 



The Wayfarer in New York 

There has been dwelling on my mind a paragraph which 
I read lately in a New York paper concerning a gentleman 
who was suspected of dealing in counterfeit trade dollars. 
The paragraph recited that the gentleman "skipped the 
town to avoid further judicial complications." Right 
merrily did I ''skip" Jefiferson-market Gaol; and then 
I skipped — literally so — up an iron staircase some thirty 
feet high, and into Sixth avenue, and so into one of the 
Elevated Railroad cars, which, in a few minutes, deposited 
me on a point close to Broadway, crossing which I found 
myself at the distance of a few ** blocks" from my destina- 
tion. The Tombs — rarely has so appropriate a name 
been bestowed on a prison — is a really remarkable and 
grandiose specimen of Egyptian architecture; and but 
for the unfortunate position of the site it would be the most 
imposing public building in New York. The structure 
occupies an entire block or insula, as an ancient Roman 
district surveyor would phrase it, bounded by Centre Street 
on the east. Elm Street on the West, Leonard Street on the 
South, and Franklin Street on the north ; and it is thus in 
the very heart of the lower or business quarter of the Island 
of Manhattan, and within a few minutes' walk of that 
astonishing Wall Street, in the purlieus of which so many 
speculative individuals are so persistently and so con- 
tinuously qualifying themselves for an ultimate residence 
in this grim palace of the felonious Pharaohs and Ptolemies. 
The really striking proportions of the building are 
dwarfed into comparative insignificance by its unfortunate 
structural disposition, which is in a hollow so deep that 
the coping of the massive wards of the prison are scarcely 
above the level of the adjacent Broadway. The site of 
the Tombs was formerly occupied by a piece of water 
92 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

known as the Collect pond, which was connected with the 
North or Hudson River by a swampy strip, through which 
ran a rivulet parallel with the existing Canal Street. The 
Collect pond was filled up in the year 1836; and within 
the two years following, the Tombs Prison was built on 
the reclaimed land. The marshy soil was ill calculated 
to support the weight of an edifice so colossal; and al- 
though the foundations were laid much deeper than is 
customary, some parts of the walls settled to such an extent 
that the gravest apprehensions were for a time felt for the 
safety of the entire building. Possibly, if the clerks and 
warders could have been extricated in time, no great harm 
would have been done had the ponderous walls settled 
together, until the Tombs and all the rogues within it had 
been comfortably embogued in the swampy bosom of the 
bygone Collect pond. As it is, the dismal fortress has stood 
for a third of a century without any material change, and 
is considered perfectly safe. Who gave it the name of 
** Tombs" I am unable to say, since it is legally the City 
Prison — The Gaol of Newgate, substantially — of New 
Yorkr but the criminal stronghold earned its appellation, 
I should say, from its general funereal appearance and its 
early reputation as a damp and unhealthy place. Its 
lugubrious aspect, it should seem, ought to have made the 
Tombs a terror to evil-doers ; but such, I fear, has not been 
the case. The prison is generally full; and the crop of 
murderers is, in particular, steady and abundant. 

Externally the building is entirely of granite, and appears 
to be of only one story, the windows being carried from 
a point about two yards above the ground up to beneath 
the cornice. The main entrance is in, or, in Transatlantic 
parlance, **on," Centre Street, and is reached by a flight 
93 



The Wayfarer in New York 

of wide, dark stone steps, through a spacious portico sup- 
ported by four ponderous columns. The external walls 
of the remaining three sides are more or less broken up by 
columns and secondary doors of entrance, this infusing 
some degree of variety into the oppressive monotony of 
the pile, the remembrance of which hangs heavily upon you 
afterwards, like a nightmare on your soul. I was ac- 
companied on my visit to this abode of misery by a gentle- 
man who had been formerly Mayor of New York; and 
a word from him acted as an "open sesame" to the most 
recondite penetralia of the prison. The chief warder, 
who took us in charge, was a ''character." He had been 
a custodian of the Tombs for more than a quarter of 
a century — a wonderfully long spell for an office-holder 
in America — and he was, if I mistake not, an Irishman. 
At least he was endowed with a brogue as rich and melodious 
as though he had only left the county Cork the day before 
yesterday. He was a wag, too; but in every line of his 
honest countenance there beamed one unmistakable and 
prevailing expression — that of benevolent pity. . . . 

Internally, the Tombs is rather a series of prisons than 
a single structure. The cells rise in tiers one above the 
other, with a separate corridor for each tier. There is a 
grating before each cell, between the bars of which the 
visitor can converse with the prisoner within. Throughout 
the day the inner, or wooden, door of the cell is left 
more than half open. Beyond the circumstance that the 
window — which admits plenty of light — is barred, and 
is high up in an embrasure of the wall, there need be 
nothing whatever dungeon-like about the cell in the Tombs. 
The prison furniture is necessarily scanty in quantity and 
simple in quality; but the prisoner more or less blessed 
94 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

by affluence is at liberty to supplement the equipment of 
his apartment by any such fittings and decorations as the 
length of his purse and the refinement of his aesthetic 
taste may lead him to adopt. . . . 

Finally the chief warder took us to his garden, 
where there was a vine trained against the wall, with a 
pigeon-cote amply stocked, and a pretty little pond bordered 
by turf and flowers. The chief spoke in terms of humorous 
regret about the disappearance of "a, grand old frog," erst 
the delight and ornament of the Tombs garden, but who, 
in the course of last fall, had eloped to realms unknown. 
Where is that frog now? Croaks he in the Great Dismal 
Swamp in Virginia — which, by the way, is not by any 
means a dismal region — or is he going about the States, 
emulating the Frog Opera, and singing counter-tenor in 
the Pollywog Chorus ? I shook hands with the benevolent 
chief warder and bade him farewell. To my great joy 
I found that nothing had turned up against me while I had 
been in the Tombs. The authorities had no warrant for my 
detention; and by two o'clock in the afternoon I was stand- 
ing in Centre Street as free as that "grand old frog" who, 
for reasons unknown, had shown the Tombs a clean pair 
of heels. I do not mean to go there again if I can help it. 

George A. Sala 

From America Revisited. London, 1882 

In City Hall Park <:::y ^;::y -^^ -o <:>,. 

TIE stands, a simple soldier, there, 
-*- -*- Who deemed one life too small a fee 
For him to give in that great strife 
That made his country free. 
95 



The Wayfarer in New York 

And it is free ! High o'er the din 

And turmoil of the city's ways, 
Lo ! Justice holds her sword and scales 

Above the land she sways. 

The commerce of a giant world 

Moves at his feet. Within his reach 

The tongues of nations meet; the air 
Is vibrant with their speech. 

He sees where science delves and wrests 

The rock ribs of the earth apart, 
And fills, with teeming floods of life, 

The arteries of her heart. 

In sober garb and quiet mien 
He stands; from out the western skies, 

Athwart the calmness of his face. 
The peaceful sunshine lies. 

And while our land endures to reap 

His sowing, memory shall not fail 
Of him who died that she might live, — 

The patriot, Nathan Hale ! 

Mary Edith Buhler 

A New York City Character ^;> ^o ^c> 

TT'S almost two years now since Mr. Keese (let's call 
-*- him Marty Keese ; Mayors, Borough Presidents — 
even President Lincoln on one ever-to-be-remembered 
Sunday — called him Marty, and he Hked the name) — 
it's two years since Marty explained for the first time to 
an interviewer from The Sun why he found it more difficult 
96 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

each day to climb the iron spiral staircase that twists up 
through our beautiful City Hall to the apartments just 
under the cupola that Marty had occupied ever since he 
became custodian of the City Hall almost thirty years ago. 

" I used to watch almost every rivet," Marty said then, 
" as they drove them into these skyscrapers around City 
Hall Park, and the higher the skyscrapers went the prouder 
I was of Manhattan" — and he indicated with a gaunt 
hand Newspaper Row and the great gray pile that rises 
sixteen stories on the triangular plot formed by Nassau and 
Beekman streets and Park Row where, when Marty first 
rode pigs in the park, stood the old Brick Church with its 
sloping banks of turf and the tiny graveyard. 

''I was proud of the high buildings when they first began, 
as all New York was proud of them, but now when I get 
old enough to have sense, I'm sorry they ever put them up. 
It was prettier years ago when the little buildings rimmed my 
square, buildings that were dwarfs compared even to that." 

He indicated the old reddish brown bank building on 
the southwest corner of Broadway and Park Place — the 
building on the second floor of which Boss Tweed had his 
offices in the days before Marty Keese took an active part 
in the beginning of Boss Tweed's downfall — for it was 
Deputy Sheriff Marty Keese, you remember, who on 
December i6, 1871, took a stage up to the Metropolitan 
Hotel in Broadway at Prince Street and climbed up to 
Suite 114-118 and arrested the very bad boss. 

"Before they built the skyscrapers," Marty went on, 
''the light and air could get in at the park trees, and that's 
why I felt so much friskier then — because the air was 
better. Before the tall buildings made the square so stuffy 
I could run up here two or three steps at a time." 
H 97 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Marty hadn't been able to do much active work since 
fresh ''colds" and advancing years caused him steadily 
to lose his fight against the asthma that made him "stop 
to cough and to take a rest when only half-way up" the 
spiral staircase, but for almost threescore and ten years 
before that Marty and the activities of Manhattan were one. 

As a fireman his record began with the days when as 
a little tad he "ran" with the 23 Engine "gang" when 
23 Engine was quartered in what was then called Anthony 
Street and is now Worth Street. As a youth he was fore- 
man of Matthew Brennan Hose Company 60, about the 
time that Tweed was foreman of Big Six; and while Tweed 
was dropping lower in the sight of the old volunteer firemen 
Marty was growing higher, until on a proud day he became 
president of the Volunteer Firemen of New York. 

H: H: ^ H: H< 4^ ^ 

He enlisted in Ellsworth's Zouaves in 1861 and saw his 
first real fighting at Bull Run, where he was wounded. 
He returned to New York just in time to take his place in 
the ranks of the soldiers and firemen that saw the vicious 
fighting which marked the draft riots that began with the 
week of Monday, July 13, 1863. Besides his fighting on 
Southern battlefields Marty did valiant work in another 
way just before "Ellsworth's Pet Lambs" marched away 
in their enviable gray jackets and the wide trousers trimmed 
with red braid, for it was Firemen Marty Keese, A. F. 
Ockershausen, Dave Milliken, Zophar Mills, John Decker 
and John Dix that raised most of the $30,000 that was 
subscribed for the Zouaves in a few days. 

If you asked Marty about Civil War days he would begin 
by telling you of the fire in Willard's Hotel, Washington, 
which the Zouaves — then quartered in the Capitol build- 
98 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

ing — put out, for fires and fire fighting always seemed of 
first importance to Marty — battles came second. Then 
he would show you in his scrapbook a cHpping of which 
he was proudest — from a New York paper of May 13, 
1861: 

There were no ladders to get on to the building, which is 
five or six stories high, but there was a Hghtning rod, in the 
court-yard. , . . Martin J. Keese, formerly of Matthew T. 
Brennan Hose Company No. 60, climbed up the lightning rod 
and was the first on the roof. 

In Marty Keese's New York you were elected Mayor 
or Comptroller or City Chamberlain or Sheriff or what 
not because you were prominent as a fireman. Marty 
didn't aspire perhaps to offices quite so high as these, but 
it was because he was a good fireman that Sheriff Matt 
Brennan took Marty into his office, and he served also 
under William E. Connor. It was while Marty was a 
deputy under Brennan that he arrested Tweed, and when 
Slippery Dick was arrested the following month he locked 
himself in for days with Slippery Dick in his apartments 
in the New York Hotel in Broadway near Waverly Place. 
Early in 188 1 Marty was appointed custodian of the City 
Hall, and he had held the job ever since, whether Tam- 
many did or did not hold sway. 

His life was a sort of connecting link between the New 
York that was a sort of overgrown village and the New 
York that is a world metropolis. He wasn't cynical about 
the New York we know best, but as you sat with Marty in 
the cool shadows of the City Hall lobby he would tell you 
stories by the hour about a New York that was much finer 
to him. That was "once upon a time," when Manhattan 
was a fairyland; for, as Marty said, the sun shone brighter 
99 



The Wayfarer in New York 

then because it was younger, and the stars were cleaner 
and new washed at night and the Battery was the most 
beautiful park in America, where all the little tads were 
taken to roll on the grass on Sundays or to gaze with wide 
eyes out over a dancing bay that was misty with the trem- 
ulous clouds of canvas on all the clipper ships from all 
the world. 
By permission of the New York Sun 

The Bowery ^^^ ^^^^ ^=^ ^"^^ ^^^ 'Q>' 

nPHE Fifth Avenue of the East Side is the Bowery. 
-^ Everyone knows the Bowery because for years 
the magazine writer and illustrators have been making 
copy out of it. It has been regarded by some as the 
freak street of the town — the place where one goes to 
laugh at the absurd and the queer, or to get sociological 
statistics in exaggerated form. Society used to go there, 
and to its tributary streets, some years ago, on slumming 
expeditions. It does so still, and comes back to its uptown 
home better satisfied, perhaps, with its own quarters. 
Settlement workers and Charity Organization people go 
there, too ; and some of them stay there to help better the 
social conditions. Besides these there are scores of the 
morbidly curious who visit the street seeking they know 
not what, and gaining only a dismal impression. All told, 
there are many different impressions brought up from the 
Bowery and its runways by different people. ... All 
classes are there — tradespeople, clerks, mechanics, 
truckmen, longshoremen, sailors, janitors, politicians, 
peddlers, pawnbrokers, old-clothes men, with shop girls, 
sewing-women, piece workers, concert-hall singers, chorus 
girls — and all nationalities. It is one of the most cosmo- 

100 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

politan streets in New York. The Italians come into it 
from Elizabeth Street, the Chinese from Pell and Doyers 
streets, the Germans from beyond Houston Street, the 
Hungarians from Second Avenue, and the Jews from almost 
everywhere. Every street coming up from the East River 
may bring in a separate tale. Taken v^dth a liberal sprin- 
kling of Russians, Poles, Rumanians, Armenians, Irish, and 
native Americans from the west, north and south, they make 
a much-mixed assemblage. But there is no great variety 
of hue in it. The prevailing dress is rather somber, as 
well as frayed or shiny with wear. Occasionally a butter- 
fly from the theater sails by ; but the Bowery is not Fifth 
Avenue, nor even Mott Street, in color-gayety. Some- 
times one is disposed to think it a sad street. 

In the theaters the prevailing language corresponds to 
the supporting constituency. The old Bowery Theater 
that once housed traditions of the English stage with the 
elder Booth, Edwin Forrest, and Charlotte Cushman, still 
stands to-day, but it now belongs more to the Hebrew than 
to the American, and performances are given there in Ger- 
man or Yiddish oftener than in English. At the side of 
it is the popular Atlantic Gardens, where vaudeville, music, 
beer, and the German language are largely provided each 
night. Farther up town is the Irving Place Theater, once 
more devoted to Germans; and as high up on Madison 
Avenue as Fifty-Eighth Street there is still another German 
theater. The language seems to prevail on the East Side. 
Not but what there are other tongues. The Italians 
crowd into the Theatro Italiano on the Bowery, as the 
Chinese into the queer little theater on Doyers Street or 
the Irish into Miner's; but there is always someone at 
your elbow who speaks German, or some kindred dialect. 

lOI 



The Wayfarer in New York 

In other quarters of the city there are colonies where one 
hears only Syrian, Greek, Russian, Rumanian, Hungarian ; 
but on the Bowery, though all nationalities meet and talk 
each its own language, there is, aside from English, a pre- 
ponderance of German and Yiddish. 

J. C. Van Dyke in The New New York 

The Great Man of the Quarter ^^ ^:> ^^^ 

'HPHE doctor wore the only silk hat in the Quarter 
•^ — an alien, supercilious high hat that coolly as- 
serted the superiority of the head under it as it bobbed 
along. It was rusty and ruffled, antiquated as a stove- 
pipe; but it was no less important to the influence of his 
words than his degree from the Faculte de Medicine de 
Constantinople and the fame of his skill. It was a silent- 
sly declaration — intent of distinguished position — an in- 
exhaustible inspiration to dignity in a squalid environment, 
and always it brought salaams from right and left, and a 
clear way. For the pristine gloss of it, and for the militant 
manner of superiority that accompanied its wearing, the 
simple tenement-dwellers of lower Washington Street — 
which is the neighborhood of the great soap factory, and 
the hive of expatriated Syrians — accounted the doctor 
equal with MacNamarra of the corner saloon, who wore 
his only on Tuesdays, when the Board of Aldermen met, 
and on certain mysterious occasions — such as when the 
Irish have sprigs of green on their coat lapels. This was 
important to Nageeb Fiani, the dreamer, who had a pastry- 
cook for a partner, and kept a little shop just where the 
long shadow of the soap-factory chimney reaches at two 
o'clock of a midsummer afternoon. The people knew for 
themselves that there was no greater musician than he 

102 



Within Half a Mile of City Hall 

from Rector Street to the Battery and in all the colonies 
of the Quarter; but the Doctor Effendi said that there was 
none greater in all Syria. 

When the spirit of revolution stalked abroad — as may 
be set down another time — the Minister from Turkey 
came of a direful whim to the Quarter. To the doctor, 
as the most important of the Sultan's Syrian subjects in 
Washington Street, Hadji, servant to the Consul General, 
first gave notification of his coming. The Important One, 
having artfully concealed the chagrin for which, as he knew, 
the practised Hadji was keenly spying, dispatched Nageeb, 
the intelligent, Abo-Samara's little son, to inform the 
Archimandrite and the rich men of the Quarter, and put 
a flea in his ear, no more to give speed to the message than 
to impress the Consul's servant with his royal appreciation 
of the great honor. Then he sent Hadji off to his master 
to say that the devoted subjects of His Benign Majesty, 
the Sultan — to whom might God, their God, give every 
good and perfect gift, as it is written — alien from his rule 
through hard necessity, but ever mindful of their heritage, 
his service, would as little children, kiss the hand of him 
whom God had blessed with the high favor of the ruler of 
precious name. 

Norman Duncan in The Soul of the Street 
Copyright, igoo. By -permission of DouUeday, Page, 6r» Co. 

Chinatown ^^ -^^^^ ^^^:> •^^^ ^vi*' -v:^^ 

JUST turn to your right from Chatham Square, 
and — there you are ! Chinatown is a different 
world; the very silence of it has a foreign sound to one 
coming out of the boiler factory of Chatham Square. 
In Chinatown the citizens move tacitly on felt-soled shoes. 
103 



The Wayfarer in New York 

And they have a foreign way of walking in the streets, 
which are almost as narrow as the narrow sidewalks, and 
go with such crooks and turns that one of them — Pell 
Street — describes a semicircle, and, with true Oriental 
politeness, eventually leads you right back to the street you 
just left. 

In Chinatown you feel something sinister in the stealthy 
tread and prowling manner of these Celestial immigrants. 
Harmless soever as they may be, they suggest melodramas 
of opium dens and highbinders. You happen on them 
in dark hallways, or find them looking at you from strange 
crannies of ramshackle structures like night-blooming felines. 
Chinatown is truly a separate town, for though it has a 
population of hardly more than a thousand, there are seven 
times as many Chinese engaged in laundry and other 
tasks in other parts of New York, and there are colonies 
of pigtailed farmers out on Long Island, to whom China- 
town is a Mecca. The town's private affairs are governed 
by a committee of twelve prominent Chinese merchants 
and an annually elected "Mayor." The business of the 
municipality is partly drawn from curious sightseers, 
but largely from native patrons; the shops are de- 
voted to Celestial foodstuffs, pottery, jewelry, fab- 
rics and laundry supplies. The tourists who can- 
not read the multicolored banners that hang 
out for signs can read only too well the 
shop-window allurements of porcelains, 
ivories, silks, fans, screens and idols. 
Rupert Hughes 
in The Real New York. 
Copyright, 1904. By permission 
of the Author 
104 



Ill 

GREENWICH AND CHELSEA VILLAGES 



Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, un- 
ruly, musical, self-sufficient. 
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old. 

Walt Whitman 



Ill 

GREENWICH AND CHELSEA VILLAGES 

Lispenard's Meadow '^^ ^=^ ^:> ^vri*- 

" JN going from the city to our office (in Greenwich) in 
■^ 1808 and 1809," John Randel writes, under date of 
April 6, 1864, *'I generally crossed a ditch cut through 
Lispenard's salt meadow (now a culvert under Canal 
Street) on a plank laid across it for a crossing-place about 
midway between a stone bridge on Broadway with a narrow 
embankment at each end connecting it with the upland, 
and an excavation then being made at, and said to be for, 
the foundation of the present St. John's Church on Varick 
Street. From this crossing-place I followed a well-beaten 
path leading from the city to the then village of Greenwich, 
passing over open and partly fenced lots and fields, not 
at that time under cultivation, and remote from any dwelling- 
house now remembered by me except Colonel Aaron Burr's 
former country-seat, on elevated ground, called Richmond 
Hill, which was about one hundred or one hundred and 
fifty yards west of this path, and was then occupied as a place 
of refreshment for gentlemen taking a drive from the city. 
Its site is now in Charlton Street, between Varick and 
Macdougal Streets. I continued along this main path 
to a branch path diverging from it to the east, south of 
Manetta water (now Minetta Street), which branch path I 
followed to Herring Street (now Bleecker Street), passing 
107 



The Wayfarer in New York 

on my way there, from about two hundred to two hundred 
and fifty yards west, the country residence of Colonel 
Richard Varick, on elevated ground east of Manetta 
water, called 'Tusculum,' the site of which is now on 
Varick Place, on Sullivan Street, between Bleecker and 
Houston streets. On Broadway, north of Lispenard's 
salt meadow, now Canal Street, to Sailor's Snug Harbor, 
a handsome brick building called by that name, erected 
on elevated ground near the bend in Broadway near the 
present Tenth Street, and formerly the residence of Captain 
Randall; . . . and from the Bowery road westward to 
Manetta water, there were only a few scattered buildings, 
except country residences which were built back from 
Broadway with court-yards and lawns of trees and shrubs 

in front of them." 

John Randel, Jr. 

The Plague which Built Greenwich, 1822 <:> ^> 

IT had been a hideous day for New York. From early 
morning until long after dark had set in, the streets 
had been filled with frightened, disordered crowds. The 
city was again stricken with the old, inevitable, ever- 
recurring scourge of yellow fever, and the people had 
lost their heads. In every house, in every office and shop, 
there was hasty packing, mad confusion, and wild flight. 
It was only a question of getting out of town as best one 
might. Wagons and carts creaked and rumbled and rattled 
through every street, piled high with household chattels, 
up-headed in blind haste. Women rode on the swaying 
loads, or walked beside with the smaller children in their 
arms. Men bore heavy burdens, and children helped 
according to their strength. There was only one idea, and 
108 



Greenwich and Chelsea Villages 

that was flight — from a pestilence whose coming might 
have been prevented, and whose course could have been 
stayed. To most of these poor creatures the only haven 
seemed to be Greenwich Village; but some sought the 
scattered settlements above; some crossed to Hoboken; 
some to Bushwick; while others made a long journey to 
Staten Island, across the bay. And when they reached 
their goals, it was to beg or buy lodgings anywhere and 
anyhow; to sleep in cellars and garrets, in barns and 
stables. 

The panic was not only among the poor and ignorant. 
Merchants were moving their offices, and even the Post 
Office and the Custom House were to be transferred to 
Greenwich. There were some who remained faithful 
throughout all, and who labored for the stricken, and whose 
names are not even written in the memory of their fellow- 
men. But the city had been so often ravaged before, that 
at the first sight there was one mere animal impulse of 
flight that seized upon all alike. 

At one o'clock, when some of the better streets had once 
more taken on their natural quiet, an ox-cart stood before 
the door of the Dolphs' old house. A Uttle behind it stood 
the family carriage, its lamps unlit. The horses stirred 
uneasily, but the oxen waited in dull, indifferent patience. 
Presently the door opened, and two men came out and 
awkwardly bore a plain coffin to the cart. Then they 
mounted to the front of the cart, hiding between them 
a muffled lantern. They wore cloths over the lower 
part of their faces, and felt hats drawn low over their eyes. 
Something in their gait showed them to be seafaring men, 
or the like. 

Then out of the open door came Jacob Dolph, moving 
109 



The Wayfarer in New York 

with a feeble shuffle between his son and his old negro 
coachman — this man and his wife the only faithful of 
all the servants. The young man put his father in the 
carriage, and the negro went back and locked the doors 
and brought the keys to his young master. He mounted 
to the box, and through the darkness could be seen a white 
towel tied around his arm — the old badge of servitude's 
mourning. 

The oxen were started up, and the two vehicles moved 
up into Broadway. They travelled with painful slowness; 
the horses had to be held in to keep them behind the cart, 
for the oxen could be only guided by the whip, and not 
by word of mouth. The old man moaned a little at the 
pace, and quivered when he heard the distant sound of 
hammers. 

"What is it?" he asked, nervously. 

"They are boarding up some of the streets," said his 
son; "do not fear, father. Everything is prepared; and 
if we make no noise, we shall not be troubled." 

"If we can only keep her out of the Potter's Field — 
the Potter's Field," cried the father; "I'll thank God — 
I'll ask no more — I'll ask no more." 

And then he broke down and cried a little feebly, and got 
his son's hand in the darkness and put on his own shoulder. 

It was nearly two when they came to St Paul's and turned 
the corner to the gate. It was dark below, but some 
frenzied fools were burning tar-barrels far down Ann Street, 
and the light flickered on the top of the Church spire. 
They crossed the churchyard to where a shallow grave 
had been dug, halfway down the hill. The men lowered 
the body into it; the old negro gave them a little rouleau 
of coin, and they went hurriedly away into the night. 
no 



Greenwich and Chelsea Villages 

The clergyman came out by and by, with the sexton 
behind him. He stood high up above the grave, and 
drew his long cloak about him and lifted an old pomander- 
box to his face. He was not more foolish than his fellows; 
in that evil hour men took to charms and to saying of spells. 
Below the grave and apart, for the curse rested upon them, 
too, stood Jacob Dolph and his son, the old man leaning on 
the arm of the younger. Then the clergyman began to 
read the service for the burial of the dead, over the de- 
parted sister — and wife and mother. He spoke low; 
but his voice seemed to echo in the stillness. He came 
forward with a certain shrinking, and cast the handful 
of dust and ashes into the grave. When it was done, the 
sexton stepped forward and rapidly threw in the earth until 
he had filled the little hollow even with the ground. Then, 
with fearful precaution, he laid down the carefully cut 
sods, and smoothed them until there was no sign of what 
had been done. The clergyman turned to the two mourners, 
without moving nearer to them, and lifted up his hands. 
The old man tried to kneel; but his son held him up, for 
he was too feeble, and they bent their heads for a moment 
of silence. The clergyman went away as he had come; 
and Jacob Dolph and his son went back to the carriage. 
When his father was seated, young Jacob Dolph said to 
the coachman: "To the new house." 

The heavy coach swung into Broadway, and climbed up 
the hill out into the open country. There were lights still 
burning in the farmhouses, bright gleams to the east and 
west, but the silence of the damp summer night hung over 
the sparse suburbs, and the darkness seemed to grow more 
intense as they drove away from the city. The trees by 
the roadside were almost black in the gray mist; the raw, 
III 



The Wayfarer in New York 

moist smell of the night, the damp air, chilly upon the high 
land, came in through the carriage windows. 

H. C. BuNNER in The Story of a New York House 
Copyright, 1887, by Charles Scrihner^s Sons 

A Song of Bedford Street ^^^ ^^ ^::> ^;::y 

TT'S a long time ago and a poor time to boast of, 
■*■ The foolish old time of two young people's start, 
But sweet were the days that young love made the most of — 

So short by the clock, and so long by the heart ! 
We lived in a cottage in old Greenwich Village, 

With a tiny clay plot that was burnt brown and hard; 
But it softened at last to my girl's patient tillage, 

And the roses sprang up in our little back yard. 

The roses sprang up and the yellow day-lilies; 

And heartsease and pansies, sweet Williams and stocks, 
And bachelors' -buttons and bright daffodillies 

Filled green little beds that I bordered with box. 
They were plain country posies, bright-hued and sweet- 
smelling, 

And the two of us worked for them, worked long and hard ; 
And the flowers she had loved in her old-country dwelling. 

They made her at home in our little back yard. 

In the morning I dug while the breakfast was cooking, 

And went to the shop, where I toiled all the day; 
And at night I returned, and I found my love looking 

With her bright country eyes down the dull city way. 
And first she would tell me what flowers were blooming, 

And her soft hand slipped into a hand that was hard, 
And she led through the house till a breeze came perfuming 

Our little back hall from our little back yard. 
112 



Greenwich and Chelsea Villages 

It was long, long ago, and we haven't grown wealthy; 

And we don't Hve in state up in Madison Square: 
But the old man is hale, and he's happy and healthy, 

And his wife's none the worse for the gray in her hair. 
Each year lends a sweeter new scent to the roses; 

Each year makes hard life seem a little less hard; 
And each year a new love for old lovers discloses — 

Come, wife, let us walk in our little back yard! 

H. C. BUNNER 
Copyright, 1896, hy Charles Scrihner^s Sons 

The Fourteenth Street Theater <:> ^^:y ^^b* 

A S soon as we were settled and poor singed Josephus 
^ had tiptoed in by the fire, evidently trying to make 
up for his shabby coat by the profundity of his purr, 
Evan set forth his scheme to our hostess. . . . 

To my surprise in five minutes Miss Lavinia was ready, 
and we sallied forth, Evan sandwiched between us. As 
the old Dorman house is in the northeastern corner of 
what was far away Greenwich Village, — at the time the 
Bouerie was a blooming orchard, and is meshed in by a 
curious jumble of thoroughfares, that must have originally 
either followed the tracks of wandering cattle or worthy 
citizens who had lost their bearings, for Waverley Place 
comes to an untimely end in West Eleventh Street, and 
Fourth Street collides with Horatio and is headed off by 
Thirteenth Street before it has a chance even to catch a 
glimpse of the river, — a few steps brought us into 
Fourteenth Street, where flaming gas jets announced that 
the play of "Jim Bludso" might be seen. 

"Dear me!" ejaculated Miss Lavinia, "do people still 
go to this theater?" ... 

I 113 



The Wayfarer in New York 

It is a great deal to be surrounded by an audience all 
thoroughly in the mood to be swayed by the emotion of 
the piece, plain people, perhaps, but solidly honest. 
Directly in front sat a young couple; the girl, in a fresh 
white silk waist, wore so fat and new a wedding ring 
upon her ungloved hand, which the man held in a tight grip, 
that I surmised that this trip into stageland was perhaps 
their humble wedding journey, from which they would 
return to "rooms" made ready by jubilant relatives, eat a 
wonderful supper, and begin life. 

The next couple were not so entirely en rapport. The 
girl, who wore a gorgeous garnet engagement ring, also 
very new, merely rested her hand on her lover's coat sleeve 
where she could see the light play upon the stones. 

When, after the first act, in answer to hearty rounds of 
applause, varied with whistles and shouts from the gallery, 
the characters stepped forward, not in the unnatural string 
usual in more genteel playhouses, where victor and van- 
quished join hands and bow, but one by one, each being 
greeted by cheers, hisses, or groans, according to the part ; 
and when the villain appeared I found myself groaning 
with the rest, and though Evan laughed, I know he 
understood. 

After it was over, as we went out into the night, Evan 
headed toward Sixth Avenue instead of homeward. 

*' May I ask where we are going now ? " said Miss Lavinia 
meekly. She had really enjoyed the play, and I know I 
heard her sniff once or twice at the proper time, though 
of course I pretended not to. 

"Going?" echoed Evan. "Only around the corner to 
get three fries in a box, with the usual pickle and cracker 
trimmings, there being no restaurant close by that you 
114 



Greenwich and Chelsea Villages 

would care for; then we will carry them home and have 
a little supper in the pantry, if your Lucy has not locked up 
the forks and taken the key to bed. If she has, we can 
use wooden toothpicks." 

At first Miss Lavinia seemed to feel guilty at the idea of 
disturbing Lucy's immaculate pantry at such an hour; 
but liberty is highly infectious. She had spent the evening 
out without previous intent ; the next step was to feel that 
her soul was her own on her return. She unlocked the 
forks, Evan unpacked the upstairs ice-chest for the dog's- 
head bass that wise women always have when they expect 
visiting Englishmen, even though they are transplanted 
and acclimated ones, and she ate the oysters, still steaming, 
from their original package, with great satisfaction. After 
we had finished Miss Lavinia bravely declared her in- 
dependence of Lucy. The happy don't-care feeling pro- 
duced by broiled oysters and bass on a cold night is a 
perfect revelation to people used to after-theater suppers 
composed of complications, sticky sweets, and champagne. 

When we had finished I thought for a moment that she 
showed a desire to conceal the invasion by washing the 
dishes, but she put it aside, and we all went upstairs to- 
gether. 

Mabel Osgood Wright in People of the Whirlpool 

Greenwich and Chelsea -'^^^ ^:> ^^ '^^ 

/^^REENWICH is one of the very oldest places on the 
^-^ island of Manhattan. At first it was an Indian 
village, called Sapokanican, and was probably near the 
present site of Gansevoort Market. The Dutch gov- 
ernor, Wouter Van Twiller, coveted it, and finally se- 
cured it as a tobacco farm. The farmhouse he built 
IIS 



The Wayfarer in New York 

upon it, as Mr. Janvier tells us, was the first building erected 
outside of the Fort Amsterdam region, and practically the 
beginning of Greenwich. The village had an uneventful 
history under the Dutch, and when it passed to the English, 
it had a suburban character for many years. It was a 
place where the Warrens, the Bayards, and the DeLanceys 
had country homes. The building of it was a gradual 
affair. It was of some proportions when in 1811 the City 
Plan, whereby New York was cut up into checkerboard 
"blocks," came into existence. The new plan jostled the 
rambling nature of Greenwich to the breaking point, and 
yet left some of its quarter-circle and corkscrew streets 
sufficiently intact for the people of the middle nineteenth 
century to build substantial dwellings along them. These 
streets with their red-brick buildings remain to us and 
make up perhaps the most picturesque glimpse of old New 
York that we have. Along them one sees scattered here 
and there the gable-windowed wooden houses of an earlier 
period, with a quaint St. Luke's Chapel, or a scrap of a 
park, or trees and vines and garden walls that now look 
strange in the great city. 

But Greenwich Village is one of the fast-disappearing 
features of the town. And here again the contrast is pre- 
sented. Above the gambrel roofs of the past are lifting 
enormous sky-scraping factories and warehouses, the traffic 
from the ocean-liners rattles through the streets, the Ninth 
Avenue Elevated roars overhead. St. Luke's Park (or, 
as it is now called, Hudson Park) has been remodeled into 
a sunken water-garden with handsome Italian-looking 
loggias that make one gasp when seen against the old brick 
residences on either side of it. Abingdon Square (named 
for the Earl of Abingdon, who married one of the Warrens, 
116 



Greenwich and Chelsea Villages 

and thus came into possession of many acres in Green- 
wich) has only its name left to suggest a connection with 
history. Everywhere the new is crowding out the old; 
and before long Greenwich, where many an old-time New 
York family made the money that carried it up to a brown- 
stone front on Fifth Avenue, will be merely a tradition. 

It is a comparatively clean portion of the town, this 
Greenwich district, though now a foreign population is 
crowding in upon it to its detriment. A walk there is 
entertaining and, in some of the streets, quite astonishing, 
not alone for what one sees, but for what one does not hear. 
In spots there is an unwonted silence, as though one were 
in some country village. Up Washington Street and up 
Tenth Avenue there are scraps of this silence to be found 
about old houses, old walls, old trees. At Twentieth Street 
the extensive grounds of the General Theological Seminary 
(formerly called Chelsea Square), with their commanding 
buildings, seem to emphasize the stillness; but at the much 
traveled Twenty-third Street it is lost in the roar of trucks 
and trolleys. 

Unfortunately, perhaps, the average man who walks up 
town in the afternoon takes none of these strolls — neither 
to the east nor to the west. He bolts up Broadway with 
the mob, pushing his way along the sidewalks, dodging 
trucks from the side streets, breathing dust and smoke 
from all streets, and apparently seeing nothing, not even 
his fellow-pedestrians. With some fine scheme in his head 
(a pot of money its ultimate outcome), he looks at passing 
buildings, lights, and colors, but receives no impression 
from them. He is out for bodily exercise, and thinks he is 
getting it, but knows no reason why he should not work his 
head in another direction at the same time. The charm 
117 



The Wayfarer in New York 

of Grace Church is lost upon him; and Union Square 
appears to him only as a place where there are some 
trees, park benches, and dirty-looking people seated 
on the benches reading yellow-looking newspapers. 
At Madison Square perhaps he begins to take 
notice; but not of Saint Gaudens' "Farragut," 
nor the trees, nor the revel of color all about. 
He squints an eye at the present condi- 
tion of the newest ascending sky-scraper ; 
he takes a look at a new turn-out or 
automobile, or looks over the crowd 
for chance acquaintances, for he 
is in the shopping district and 
there are many smartly 
dressed men and women 
in the throng. In 
short, up town has 
been reached, and 
life once more 
begins for 
him. 
J. C. Van Dyke 
in The New New York 



Ii8 



IV 

THE WASHINGTON SQUARE NEIGHBORHOOD 



BROADWAY 

HERE surge the ceaseless caravans, 
Here throbs the city's heart, 
And down the street each takes his way 
To play his little part. 

The tides of life flow on, flow on, 

And Laughter meets Despair; 
A heart might break along Broadway . . . 
I wonder who would care? 

Charles Hanson Towne 
Copyright, igo8, by the B. W, Dodge Co. 



IV 

THE WASHINGTON SQUARE NEIGHBORHOOD 
Grace Church Garden ^;> ^i>. -^^ ^;:y 

T TINT of a verdant peace that lies 
-'■ -^ Far from the great town's noise and heat, 
Far from the vision of tired eyes, 
And the din of hurrying feet. 

Sweet suggestion of quiet ways, 
With a wide sky bending overhead. 

Where shadows Hnger and sunshine plays, 
And the earth is soft to the tread. 

Bit of vivid and cheerful green, 

In the midst of tumult, yet apart. 
Fair and peaceful, resting serene. 

On the city's turbulent heart. 

Frances A. Schneider 

The Brasserie Pigault ^^> ^^ '"^^ '"^ 

' I ^HE Doctor's domain was extensive. Five years 
-'- after his return from the war he had taken the two 
upper floors of the old house, on a fifteen years' lease. 
He had tried to get a lease for a longer term, but even 
the conservative old German who was his landlord knew 
that rents would go up as the years went on; and fifteen 
years was the longest period for which he would agree to 

121 



The Wayfarer in New York 

let Dr. Peters have the rooms at the modest rate that they 
then commanded. 

He had wanted a home, this lonely bachelor stranded 
after the great war. Bachelors sometimes want homes; 
they even long for them with a conscious, understanding, 
intelligent desire that their married friends never credit 
them with. "You don't know what it is to have a home," 
says Smith, who married at twenty-five, to Jones, who 
is unmarried at forty. But Jones does know what it 
would be to have a home, for does he not know what it is 
not to have a home ? Ay, far more than complacent Smith, 
who made his nest from mere blind instinct, long before he 
could have become conscious of his own need of a nest — 
far more than happy, comfortable, satisfied Smith, does 
this lone bird of celibacy of a Jones know of the superiority 
of a consecrated abiding-place to his cold, casual twig. 

There is always something comically, dismally pathetic 
about the bachelor's attempt to construct a home. I was 
once at the performance of an opera attempted by a weak 
little theatrical troupe that was in bad luck. The tenor 
had failed them at the last moment, so a good-looking 
supernumerary stood up in the tenor's clothes while the 
poor, hard-working, middle-aged soprano sang both parts 
of their duets. That is what the bachelor tries to do — 
to sing both parts of their duets. 

It is always a failure; and so the Doctor found it. . . . 

"Perhaps it's Luise's cooking," he thought: "I ought 
to be inured to it; but maybe it's like arsenic or morphine 
— a sort of cumulative poison. I guess I'm getting 
dyspeptic." 

He went upstairs to take a look at the kitchen and see 
if he could conjure up again his old dream. . . . 

122 



The Washington Square Neighborhood 

He tried to think charitably of Luise; but there was no 
room for doubt about the dinner. It was simply bad. 
Many people like German cooking; but nobody could like 
Luise's German cooking. She had a way of announcing 
the names of the dishes, as she set them down with a vicious 
slam, and she told him that the viand of the evening was 
a "Wiener Schnitzel." He credited her with forethought 
in this, for if she had not done so, he would not have been 
able to guess the fact that what was before him had once 
been a veal cutlet. 

He smoked two pipes after his dinner, and then he went 
around to the Brasserie Pigault. For fourteen years 
he had gone to the Brasserie Pigault. When he first set 
up his bachelor establishment, he had resolved to stay at 
home nights, and for a month or two the Brasserie had 
missed him, and he had sat in his green rep easy-chair, 
that was not, and never could have been meant to be easy, 
before his meagre little hard-coal fire. But it was not 
staying at home, after all; it was only staying in the house ; 
and by and by he went back to the Brasserie Pigault, which 
was a home indeed, after its sort, to him and to many 
another lonely bachelor. 

If you put it that a man habitually spends his evenings 
in a beer-shop it does not sound well. It not only suggests 
orgies and deep potations, but it is low. One thinks of 
Robert Burns, of the police -reports, of neglected wives 
waiting at home, of brawls and drunkenness and of a cheap 
grade of tobacco. 

This is largely due to the influence of a number of 

estimable gentlemen who wander about this broad land, 

patronizing second-class hotels and denouncing in scathing 

terms the Demon Drink. They sternly refuse to admit 

123 



The Wayfarer in New York 

any distinction between one place where liquor is sold and 
another place where liquor is sold. Yet I think the most 
vehement of these public-spirited men would be inclined 
to acknowledge that there is a bright side to the beer 
question if he could be induced to pass a few evenings, non- 
prof essionally, in such a place as the Brasserie Pigault. 

True he could not see there the red-eyed contention 
that furnishes him with so much useful oratorical material. 
No upraised bludgeon, no gleaming stiletto, would gladden 
his eyes. No degraded specimen of humanity would 
point a prohibitionist's moral by going to sleep on the floor. 
No ribaldry would agreeably shock his expectant ears. 

He would see Mme. Pigault, neat and comely, knitting 
behind her desk. He would see Mr. Martin and M. 
Ovide Marie at their everlasting game of dominos. He 
would see little Potain, whose wife died two years ago 
after forty-seven years of married life, and who would be 
more lonely than he is, if it were not for Mme. Pigault's 
hospitality, drinking his one glass of vermouth gomme 
and reading all the papers without missing a column. 
He would see poor old Parker Prout, the artist, who has 
been painting all day long for the Nassau Street auction 
shops — they will not hang Prout's pictures, even at the 
National Academy — and who has come to the Brasserie 
Pigault to buy one glass of beer for himself, and to wait 
and hope that somebody will come in who will buy another 
for him. He would see good-natured Jack Wilder, the 
bright young reporter of the Morning Record, dropping 
in to perform that act of charity, and to square accounts 
by mildly chaffing old Prout about the art which he still 
loves, after forty years of servitude to the auctioneer and 
the maker of chromo-lithographs. He would see Dr. 
124 



The Washington Square Neighborhood 

Peters taking his regular rations — two glasses of lager, 
the first of each keg — and studying the Courrier to keep 
up his French. 

And on this particular night there was a rare guest to 
be seen under Mnie. Pigault's roof, for Father Dube came 
in, big, ponderous and genial, rubbing his fat red hands, 
and smiling a sociable benediction upon the place and 
all within it. 

Mme. Pigault, alert and flattered, rose to welcome him, 
and he unbuttoned his heavy overcoat, with its great cape, 
and leaned on the desk to chat with her for a moment. 
How was the baby and little Eulalie? And business was 
always good? That was to be expected. People knew 
where they were comfortable, and everybody was com- 
fortable chez Mme. Pigault. And now he saw his good 
friend the Doctor sitting there. The Doctor looked as if 
he would Hke a little game of dominos. He would go 
and challenge his good friend the Doctor. And yes, 
why not? He would take a glass of that excellent 
Chablis of Mme. Pigault's, that he had tasted when he had 
last visited Mme. Pigault. Was it so long ago as Easter? 
Ah, but the time goes! and an old man is slow. He 
cannot see his friends as often as he could wish. And 
Mme. Pigault being prosperous and blessed by heaven, 
has no need of him. Ah, the Doctor is waiting. And 
Mme. Pigault will not forget the Chablis? 

And so this simple-minded old priest, who knew no 
better than to sit down in his parishioner's brasserie and 
take a glass of wine and play a game of dominos with a 
heretic, lumbered over to the Doctor's table, and struggled 
out of his overcoat, with Louis's help, and sat down op- 
posite his good friend Peters. And Louis bustled eagerly 
125 



The Wayfarer in New York 

about, and opened a new bottle of the Chablis, and brought 
the box with the best dominos, that Mme. Pigault took 
from her desk; and cleaned a slate; and Mme. Pigault 
looked on proudly as her favorite customer and her spiritual 
guide shuffled and drew. 

H. C. BuNNER in The Midge 
Copyright, 1886, by Charles Scrihner^s Sons 

The Astor Place Opera House Riot ^^^ -^^ 

TN 1826 Mr. Edwin Forrest became a dramatic star of 
•*■ first magnitude — puffed everywhere as "the Ameri- 
can tragedian." In 1827 Mr. William C. Macready first 
visited the United States, starring the country, playing 
alternate engagements with Mr. Forrest, but in no very 
decided spirit of rivalry. 

In 1835 Mr. Forrest played most successfully in England; 
in 1844 Mr. Macready again visited the United States. 
But on this occasion he played usually in cities where 
there was more than one theater and of course where a 
rival manager immediately sought to offset the new at- 
traction by the best talent to be found — and thus almost 
invariably Mr. Forrest played against him with the heavy 
advantage of being American, so that the tour of the great 
English actor was a comparative failure. 

A degree of partisanship was everywhere excited which 
found its vent in the next professional tour which Mr. 
Forrest made in England. A strong opposition to him 
he charged to his rival, and Mr. Forrest even hissed Mr. 
Macready's performance of ''Hamlet" (because, so he 
said, the English actor had "thought fit to introduce a 
fancy dance") in Edinburgh. 

On his return to America, Mr. Forrest freely expressed 
126 



The Washington Square Neighborhood 

the feeling that he had been unfairly treated in England, 
and Mr. Macready's appearance in Boston in 1848 was 
greeted by the first of many bitter newspaper articles. 
Mr. Macready's contemptuous allusion to this article nearly 
precipitated social war in New York when Macready 
appeared at the Opera House (then at Astor Place) while 
Forrest was acting in the old Broadway Theater. The 
storm, however, blew over and expended itself in Phila- 
delphia through violent and vindictive signed ''cards" 
which must have ''boosted" the circulations of the Public 
Ledger and other morning papers of the day, but had no 
other effect except to harden the determination of Mr. 
Forrest's friends to prevent Mr. Macready from ever 
playing another engagement in America. In May, 1849, 
Mr. Macready attempted to play "Macbeth" in New York 
and was hissed from the stage by a packed audience. Mr. 
Macready supposed the engagement ended, but his friends 
and the enemies of Forrest insisted on a different course. 
Influential citizens, headed by Washington Irving, pledged 
the pubHc to sustain him. 

So matters stood when it was announced that he should 
appear again on the loth of May. Of what followed we 
have a contemporary account: — 

"On the stage of the Astor Place Opera House the Eng- 
lish actor Macready was trying to play the part of 'Mac- 
beth,' in which he was interrupted by hisses and hootings, 
and encouraged by the cheers of a large audience who 
had crowded the house to sustain him. On the outside 
a mob was gathering, trying to force an entrance, and 
throwing stones at the barricaded windows. In the house 
the police were arresting those who made the disturbance 
— outside they were driven back by volleys of paving stones. 
127 



The Wayfarer in New York 

" In the midst of this scene of clamor and outrage was 
heard the clatter of an approaching troop of horse. 'The 
military, the military are coming ! ' Further on was heard 
the quick tramp of infantry and there was seen the gleam of 
bayonets. A cry of rage burst from the mob, inspired with 
sudden fury at the appearance of an armed force. They 
ceased storming the Opera House, and turned their volley 
of paving stones against the horsemen. Amid piercing 
yells men were knocked from their horses, the untrained 
animals frightened, and the force speedily so routed that 
it could not afterwards be rallied. 

" Next came the turn of the infantry. They marched 
down the sidewalk in a solid column; but had no sooner 
taken position for protection of the house than they were 
assailed with volleys of missals (sic). Soldiers were 
knocked down and carried off wounded. Officers were 
disabled. An attempt to charge with the bayonet was 
frustrated by the dense crowds seizing the muskets and 
attempting to wrest them from the hands of the soldiers. 
At last the awful word was given to fire — there was a gleam 
of sulphurous light, a sharp, quick rattle, and here and 
there in the crowd a man sank upon the pavement with 
a deep groan. Then came a more furious attack and a 
wild yell for vengeance! Then the rattle of another 
death-dealing volley, far more fatal than the first. The 
ground was covered with killed and wounded — the pave- 
ment was stained with blood. A panic seized the multitude, 
which broke and scattered in every direction. 

" The horrors of that night can never be described. The 

military, resting from their work of death, in stern silence 

were grimly guarding the Opera House. Its interior was 

a rendezvous and a hospital for the wounded military and 

128 



The Washington Square Neighborhood 

police. Here and there around the building and at the 
corners of the streets were crowds of men talking in deep 
and earnest tones of indignation. There were little pro- 
cessions moving off with the dead or mutilated bodies of 
friends and relations. 

" The result of that night's work was the death of twenty- 
two victims, either shot dead upon the spot or mortally 
wounded, so that they died within a few days; and the 
wounding of some thirty more, many of whom will be 
maimed for life." 

From a contemporary pamphlet 

The Beginning of the End of Lafayette Place (1880) 

"\TOT many years ago Lafayette Place was one of the 
•^ ^ most imposing patrician quarters of New York. 
The clamors of Broadway came to it only in a dreamy 
murmur. Its length was not great, but it had a lordly 
breadth. Within easiest access of the most busy portions, 
its quiet was proverbial. So infrequent were vehicles 
along its pavements, that in summer the grass would often 
crop out there, like fringy scrollwork, near the well-swept 
sidewalks and cleanly gutters. At one end, where this 
stately avenue is crossed by a narrower street, rose an im- 
mense granite church, in rigid classical style, with the 
pointed roof of an ancient temple, and immense gray fluted 
pillars forming its portico. Then at this southern end 
stood the gray old grandeur of St. Bartholomew's where 
for nearly half a century the blooming brides of our ''best 
families" were married and their fathers and mothers lay 
in funeral state as the years rolled on. At the northern 
end was a spacious dwelling house whose oaken hall, with 
its richly mediaeval carvings and brilliant window of stained 
K 129 



The Wayfarer in New York 

glass, might well have served for some antique abbey 
over sea. But this delightful old house has disappeared 
and a vast brick structure, which is one of those towering 
altars that we so often build to commerce, has sprung up 
in its stead. There was also a certain edifice closely ad- 
jacent to this, which had a porte cocMre in the real 
Parisian style, and supplied a delightful touch of foreign 
novelty. But that, too, has disappeared ; like the house with 
the charming cloistered hall, its very quaintness was its ruin. 
But Lafayette Place is Lafayette Place still. Its trans- 
formation into cheap lodgments is gradual though sure. 
The siege goes steadily on, but the besieged have not yet 
succumbed. Every year the handsome family carriages 
that roll up and down its avenue grow fewer and fewer; 
every year its pavements, worn by the feet of dead and 
gone Knickerbockers, are more frequented by shabby 
Germans or slatternly Irish. But the solid solemnity 
of the Astor Library still draws scholars and bookworms 
within its precinct, though the dignity of possessing the 
Columbia Law School, into which slim, bright-faced 
collegians would once troop of a morning, has now de- 
parted forever. And a few abodes are still to be found here 
with the burnished door plates and the glimpses of rich 
inner tapestries that point toward wealthful prosperity. 
Edgar Fawcett in A Hopeless Case 
Copyright, 1880. By permission of Houghton Mifflin Co. 

The Bread Line <c^ ^:^ -^^ ^::^ ^::^ 

IT was eleven o'clock when they stepped out into 
the winter night. Barrifield, who was a married 
man and a suburban Brooklynite, took the South Ferry 
car at Broadway. The other three set their faces 
130 



The Washington Square Neighborhood 

north in the direction of their apartments. Van Dorn 
was a widower, Perner a confirmed bachelor, and Living- 
stone also unmarried. They were untrammeled, there- 
fore, as to their hours and habits. . . . 

On the corner of Tenth Street they halted. Across the 
way there was a long Hne of waiting men that extended 
around the corner in either direction. 

"What's that?" exclaimed Perner. 

"Why, don't you know?" said Van Dorn. "That's the 
bread line. They get a cup of coffee and a loaf of bread every 
night at twelve o'clock. Old Fleischmann, who founded the 
bakery, made that provision in his will. They begin to collect 
here at ten o'clock and before, rain or shine, hot or cold !" 

"It's cold enough to-night!" said Livingstone. 

They drew nearer. The waifs regarded them listlessly. 
They were a ragged, thinly clad lot — a drift-line of hunger, 
tossed up by the tide of chance. 

The bohemians, remembering their own lavish dinner 
and their swiftly coming plenitude, regarded these un- 
fortunates with silent compassion. 

"I say, fellows," whispered Livingstone, presently, "let's 
get a lot of nickels and give one to each of them. I guess 
we can manage it," he added, running his eye down the line 
in hasty calculation. 

The others began emptying their pockets. Perner the 
business-like stripped himself of his last cent and borrowed 
a dollar of Van Dorn to make his share equal. Then they 
separated and scoured in different directions for change. 
By the time all had returned the line had increased con- 
siderably. 

"We'd better start right away or we won't have enough," 
said Livingstone. 

131 



The Wayfarer in New York 

He began at the head of the line, and gave to each out- 
stretched hand as far as his store of coins lasted. Then 
Van Dorn took it up, and after him, Perner. They had 
barely enough to give to the last comers. The men's 
hands stretched out long before they reached them. Some 
said ''Thank you"; many said "God bless you"; some 
said nothing at all. 

''There's more money in that crowd than there is in this 
now," said Perner, as they turned away. 

"That's so," said Livingstone. "But wait till a year 
from to-night. We'll come down here and give these 
poor devils a dollar apiece — maybe ten of them." 

"Boys, do you recollect the dinner we had a year ago 
to-night?" This from Livingstone. 

The others nodded. They were remembering that, too, 
perhaps. 

"Then the bread hne afterward?" said Perner. "We 
gave them a nickel apiece all around, and were going to 
give them a dollar apiece to-night. And now, instead 
of that—" 

"Instead of that," finished Van Dorn, "we can go down 
to-night and get into the line ourselves. Light up. Stony; 
we'll take a look at your picture, anyhow." 

There was a brisk, whipping sound against the skylight 
above them. It drew their attention, and presently came 
again. Livingstone arose hastily. 

" Sleet ! " 

He spoke eagerly, and looked up at the glass overhead. 
Then he added in a sort of joyous excitement : 

"Fellows, let's do it 1 Let's go down there and get into 
the line ourselves. I've been waiting for this sleet to see 
132 



The Washington Square Neighborhood 

how they would look in it. Now we're hungry, too. Let's 
go down and get into the Une and see how it feels I ^^ 

Van Dom and Perner stared at him a moment to make 
sure that he was in earnest. There was consent in the 
laugh that followed. The proposition appealed to their 
sense of artistic fitness. There was a picturesque com- 
pleteness in thus rounding out the year. Besides, as 
Livingstone had said, they were hungry. 

They set forth somewhat later. There was a strong wind 
and the sleet bit into their flesh keenly. It got into their 
eyes and, when they spoke, into their mouths. 

**I don't know about this," shouted Van Dorn, pres- 
ently. *'I think it's undertaking a good deal for the sake 
of art." 

*'0h, pshaw. Van, this is bully!" Livingstone called 
back. He was well in advance, and did not seem to mind 
the storm. 

Perner, who was tall, was shrunken and bent by the cold 
and storm. His voice, however, he lifted above it. 

''Art ! " he yelled. " I'm going for the sake of the cofifee ! " 

The line that began on Tenth Street had made the turn 
on Broadway and reached almost to Grace Church when 
they arrived. The men stood motionless, huddled back 
into their scanty collars, their heads bent forward to shield 
their faces from the sharp, flying ice. Strong electric 
light shone on them. The driving sleet grew on their 
hats and shoulders. Those who had just arrived found it 
even colder standing still. Van Dorn's teeth were rattling. 

''Do you suppose there's always enough to go round?" 
he asked of Perner, who stood ahead of him. 

Talking was not pleasant, but the waif behind him 
answered : 

133 



The Wayfarer in New York 

"Wasn't last night. I was on the end of the line and 
didn't git no coffee. Guess there'll be enough to-night, 
though, 'cause it's New Year." 

''If they don't have coflfee to-night, I'll die," shivered 
Perner. . .. . 

The waif from behind was talking again. He had 
turned around so they could hear. 

''Last New Year there was some blokes come along an' 
give us a nickel apiece all round. I was on the end an' 
got two. When they went away one of 'em said they was 
comin' back to-night to give us a dollar apiece." 

"They won't come," said Perner. 

"Howd' y' know?" 

"We're the men." 

"Aw, what yeh givin' us?" 

"Facts. We've started a paper since then." 

Albert Bigelow Paine in The Bread Line 
Copyright, igoo, hy The Century Company 

Washington Square ^:i^ ^^> ^r^^ <:^ <::> 

T^R. SLOPER had moved his household gods up- 
^^ town, as they say in New York. He had been 
living ever since his marriage in an edifice of red brick, 
with granite copings and an enormous fanlight over the 
door, standing in a street within five minutes' walk of the 
City Hall, which saw its best days (from the social point 
of view) about 1820. After this, the tide of fashion began 
to set steadily northward, as, indeed, in New York, thanks 
to the narrow channel in which it flows, it is obliged to do, 
and the great hum of traffic rolled farther to the right and 
left of Broadway. By the time the Doctor changed his 
residence, the murmur of trade had become a mighty up- 
134 



The Washington Square Neighborhood 

roar, which was music in the ears of all good citizens 
interested in the commercial development, as they delighted 
to call it, of their fortunate isle. Doctor Sloper's interest 
in this phenomenon was only indirect — though, seeing 
that, as the years went on, half his patients came to be 
overworked men of business, it might have been more 
immediate — and when most of his neighbors' dwellings 
(also ornamented with granite copings and large fanlights) 
had been converted into offices, warehouses, and shipping 
agencies, and otherwise applied to the base uses of com- 
merce, he determined to look out for a quieter home. The 
ideal of quiet and of genteel retirement, in 1835, was found 
in Washington Square, where the Doctor built himself 
a handsome, modern, wide-fronted house, with a big 
balcony before the drawing-room windows, and a flight of 
white marble steps ascending to a portal which was also 
faced with white marble. This structure, and many of 
its neighbors, which it exactly resembled, were supposed, 
forty years ago, to embody the last results of architectural 
science, and they remain to this day very solid and honor- 
able dwellings. In front of them was the Square, contain- 
ing a considerable quantity of inexpensive vegetation, in- 
closed by a wooden paling, which increased its rural and 
accessible appearance ; and round the corner was the more 
august precinct of the Fifth Avenue, taking its origin at this 
point with a spacious and confident air which already 
marked it for high destinies. I know not whether it is 
owing to the tenderness of early associations, but this 
portion of New York appears to many persons the most 
delectable. It has a kind of established repose which is 
not of frequent occurrence in other quarters of the long 
shrill city; it has a riper, richer, more honorable look than 
13s 



The Wayfarer in New York 

any of the upper ramifications of the great longitudinal 
thoroughfare — the look of having had something of a 
social history. It was here, as you might have been in- 
formed on good authority, that you had come into a world 
which appeared to offer a variety of sources of interest ; 
it was here that your grandmother lived, in venerable 
solitude, and dispensed a hospitality which commended 
itself alike to the infant imagination and the infant palate ; 
it was here that you took your first walks abroad, following 
the nursery-maid with unequal step, and sniffing up the 
strange odor of the ailanthus-trees which at that time 
formed the principal umbrage of the Square, and diflfused 
an aroma that you were not yet critical enough to dislike 
as it deserved; it was here, finally, that your first school, 
kept by a broad-bosomed, broad-based old lady with a 
ferule, who was always having tea in a blue cup, with a 
saucer that didn't match, enlarged the circle both of your 
observations and your sensations. 

Henry James in Washington Square 
Copyright, 1880, by Henry James 

Another View of Washington Square ^> -^^ 

TT was a wretched place, stiffly laid out, shabbily kept, 
-*■ planted with mean, twigless trees, and in the middle 
the basin of an extinct fountain filled with foul snow, 
through which the dead cats and dogs were beginning to 
sprout at the solicitation of the winter's sunshine. 

A dreary place and drearily surrounded by red brick 
houses, with marble steps monstrous white, and blinds 
monstrous green — all destined to be boarding houses 
in a decade. 

Theodore Winthrop in Cecil Dreeme 
136 



V 

THE EAST SIDE 



It was upon Henry James, we believe, that the hard in- 
tensity of our Ghetto life — "all formidable foreground " — 
produced an impression like that of a long street of tenements 
at night, — and in each window the glitter of a candle push- 
ing through the darkness. The fire-escapes, too, inevitably 
suggested "a spaciously organized cage for the nimbler classes 
of animals in some great zodlogical garden." To him they 
suggested an "abashed afterthought" of communications, for- 
gotten in the first construction, by which the inhabitants lead, 
like the squirrels and monkeys, the merrier life. But they 
may as well suggest the degeneration which so easily comes 
a-creeping wherever the fire-escape of the tenement stretches 

its iron tendrils over the walls of the city street. 

Anon. 



THE EAST SIDE 

A Spring Walk ^q> ^c> ^;> <>y ^:>y 

IN the late spring John and Katharine often walked to- 
gether of an afternoon, between half -past five and sunset. 

They went about together in unfrequented places, as 
a rule, not caring to meet acquaintances at every turn. 
Neither of them had any social duties to perform, and they 
were as free to do as they pleased as though they had not 
represented the rising generation of Lauderdales. 

The spring had fairly come at last. It had rained, and 
the pavement dried in white patches, the willow trees in 
the square were a blur of green, and the Virginia creeper 
on the houses here and there was all rough with little stubby 
brown buds. It had come with a rush. The hyacinths 
were sticking their green curved beaks up through the 
park beds, and the little cock -sparrows were scrapping, 
their wings along the ground. 

There was a bright youthfulness in everything, — in the 
air, in the sky, in the old houses, in the faces of the people 
in the streets. The Italians with their fruit carts sunned 
themselves, and turned up their dark rough faces to the 
warmth. The lame boy who lived in the house at the 
corner of Clinton Place was out on the pavement, with 
a single roller skate on his better foot, pushing himself 
along with his crutch, and laughing all to himself, pale 
but happy. The old woman in gray, who hangs about 



The Wayfarer in New York 

that region and begs, had at last taken the dilapidated woollen 
shawl from her head, and had replaced it by a very, very 
poor apology for a hat, with a crumpled paper cherry and 
a green leaf in it, and only one string. And the other 
woman, who wants her car-fare to Harlem, seemed more 
anxious to get there than ever. Moreover the organ- 
grinders expressed great joy, and the children danced to- 
gether to the cheerful discords, in Washington Square, 
under the blur of the green willows — sHm American 
children, who talked through their noses, and funny little 
French children with ribbons in their hair, from South 
Fifth Avenue, and bright-eyed darky children with one 
baby amongst them. And they took turns in holding it 
while the others danced. . . . 

But Katharine and John Ralston followed less fre- 
quented paths, crossing Broadway from Clinton Place east, 
and striking past Astor Place and Lafayette Place — where 
the Crowdies lived — by Stuyvesant Street eastwards to 
Avenue A and Tompkins Square. And there, too, the 
spring was busy, blurring everything with green. Men 
were getting the benches out of the kiosk on the north side, 
where they are stacked away all winter, and others were 
repairing the band stand with its shabby white dome, and 
everywhere there were children, rising as it were from the 
earth to meet the soft air — rising as the sparkling little 
air bubbles rise in champagne, to be free at last — hundreds 
of children, perhaps a thousand, in the vast area which 
many a New Yorker has not seen twice in his life, out 
at play in the light of the westering sun. They stared 
innocently as Katharine and Ralston passed through their 
midst, and held their breath a moment at the sight of a real 
lady and gentleman. All the little girls over ten years old 
140 



The East Side 

looked at Katharine's clothes and approved of them, and 
all the boys looked at John Ralston's face to see whether 
he would be the right sort of young person to whom to 
address an ironical remark, but decided that he was not. 
But Katharine and John Ralston went on, and crossed 
the great square and left it by the southeast comer, from 
which a quiet street leads across the remaining lettered 
avenues to an enormous timber yard at the water's edge, 
a bad neighborhood at night, and the haunt of the class 
generically termed dock rats, a place of murder and sudden 
death by no means unfrequently, but by day as quiet and 
safe as any one could wish. 

They stood by the edge of the river, on the road that runs 
along from pier to pier. Katharine laid her hand upon 
Ralston's arm, and felt how it drew her gently close to him, 
and glancing at his face she loved it better than ever in the 
red evening light. 

The sun was going down between two clouds, the one 
above him, the other below, gray and golden, behind 
Brooklyn bridge, and behind the close-crossing pencil masts 
and needle yards of many vessels. From the river rose the 
white plumes of twenty little puffing tugs and ferry-boats 
far down in the distance. Between the sun's great flattened 
disk and the lover's eyes passed a great three-masted 
schooner, her vast main and mizzen set, her foresail and jib 
hauled down, being towed outward. It was very still, for 
the dock hands had gone home. 

"I love you, dear," said Katharine, softly. 

But Ralston answered nothing. Only his right hand 
drew her left more closely to his side. 

F. Marion Crawford in The Ralstons 
141 



The Wayfarer in New York 

An East Side Wedding Feast '<:^ ^^ -^^ 

STILL brooding over the enormous possibilities of 
the future, I stopped to rest and refresh myself in 
a modest and respectable little German beer-saloon, sit- 
uated on the tabooed side of the barbed-wire fence — on 
the very borderland between low life and legitimate literary 
territory. It is an ordinary enough little place, with a bar 
and tables in front, and, in a space curtained off at the rear, 
a good-sized room often used for meetings and various 
forms of merry-making. I never drop in for a glass of 
beer without thinking of a supper given in that back room 
a few years ago at which I was a guest. ... It was an 
actor who gave the supper — one of the most brilliant and 
talented of the many foreign entertainers who have visited 
our shores — and nearly every one of his guests had won 
some sort of artistic distinction. It is not the sort of a place 
that suggests luxurious feasting, but the supper which 
the worthy German and his wife set before us was, to me, 
a revelation of the resources of their national cookery. 
The occasion lingers in my memory, however, chiefly by 
reason of the charm and tact and brilliancy of the woman 
who sat in the place of honor — a woman whose name rang 
through Europe more than a quarter of a century ago as 
that of the heroine of one of the most sensational duels of 
modern times. . . . Recollections of this feast brought 
to mind another . . . given on the occasion of a great 
wedding in a quarter of the town which plays an important 
part in civic and national affairs on the first Tuesday after 
the first Monday in November — one in which the trade 
of politics ranks as one of the learned professions — a 
quarter where events date from the reigns of the different 
142 



The East Side 

police captains. The bride was a daughter of a famous 
politician, and I am sure that in point of beauty and taste- 
ful dress she might have passed muster at Tuxedo. She 
was tall, graceful, and very young, — not more than 
seventeen. One could see traces of her Hebrew lineage 
in her exquisitely lovely face, and I am sure she was well 
dressed, because she wore nothing that in any way detracted 
from her rare beauty or was offensive to the eye. She 
had been brought up near the corner of the Bowery and 
Hester Street, in the very center of one of the most vicious 
and depraved quarters of the town; and as I talked with 
her that night she told me how most of her childhood had 
been spent playing with her little brothers and sisters in 
the garden which her father had built for them on the roof 
of the house in which they lived, and on the ground floor 
of which he kept the saloon which laid the foundations of 
his present political influence. She spoke simply and in 
good English, and one could easily see how carefully she 
had been shielded from all knowledge even of that which 
went on around her. An extraordinary company had 
assembled to witness the ceremony and take part in the 
festivities which followed, and as I sat beside two brilliant, 
shrewd, wordly-wise Hebrews of my acquaintance we re- 
marked that it would be a long while before we could expect 
to see another such gathering. The most important of the 
guests were those high in political authority or in the police 
department, men whose election districts are the modern 
prototype of the English "pocket boroughs" of the last 
century; while the humblest of them all, and the merriest 
as well, was the deaf-and-dumb bootblack of a down-town 
police court, who appeared in the unwonted splendor of 
a suit which he had hired especially for the occasion, and 
143 



The Wayfarer In New York 

to which was attached a gorgeous plated watch-chain. 
"Dummy" had never been to dancing-school, but he was 
an adept in the art of sliding across the floor, and he showed 
his skill between the different sets, uttering unintelligible 
cries of delight and smiling blandly upon his acquaintances 
as he glided swiftly by them. . . . For three hours I sat 
with my two Israelitish friends — a pool -room keeper and 
a dime-museum manager respectively — and talked about 
the people who passed and repassed before us, and I am 
bound to say that the conversation of a clever New York 
Jew of their type is almost always edifying and amusing. 
''It's a curious thing," said one of my companions at last, 
''but I really believe that we three men at this table are the 
only ones in the whole room who have any sort of sense 
of the picturesqueness of this thing, or are onto the gang 
of people gathered together here. There's probably not 
a soul in the room outside of ourselves but what imagines 
that this is just a plain, every-day sort of crowd and not 
one of the most extraordinary collections of human beings 
I've ever seen in my life, and I've been knocking round 
New York ever since I was knee-high. There are thou- 
sands of people giving up their good dust every week to 
go in and look at the freaks in my museum, and there's not 
one of them that's as interesting as dozens that we can see 
here to-night for nothing. Just look at that woman over 
there that all the politicians are bowing down to ; and they've 
got a right to, too, for she's a big power in the dis- 
trict and knows more about politics than Barney Rourke. 
They never dared pull her place when the police were 
making all those raids last month. Those diamonds 
she wears are worth ten thousand if they're worth a cent. 
There's a man who wouldn't be here to-night if it wasn't 
144 



The East Side 

for the time they allow on a sentence for good behavior, 
and that fellow next him keeps a fence down in Elizabeth 
Street. There's pretty near every class of New Yorkers 
represented here to-night except the fellows that write the 
stories in the magazines. Where's Howells? I don't 
see him anywhere around," he exclaimed, ironically, 
rising from his chair as he spoke and peering curiously 
about. "Look under the table and see if he's there taking 
notes. Oh yes, I read the magazines very often when I 
have time, and some of the things I find in them are mighty 
good; but when those literary ducks start in to describe 
New York, or at least this part of it — well, excuse me, 
I don't want any of it. This would be a great place, 
though, for a story-writer to come to if he really wanted to 
learn anything about the town." 

James L. Ford in The Literary Shop 
Copyright, i8g4. By permission of A. Wessells Company 

Cat Alley ^:> ^;:> ^:^ ^;:> ^;:> ^:>,. 

/^^AT ALLEY was my alley. It was mine by right 
^^ of long acquaintance. We were neighbors for twenty 
years. Yet I never knew why it was called Cat 
Alley. There was the usual number of cats, gaunt and 
voracious, which foraged in its ash-barrels; but beyond 
the family of three-legged cats, that presented its own 
problem of heredity, — the kittens took it from the mother, 
who had lost one leg under the wheels of a dray, — there 
was nothing specially remarkable about them. It was 
not an alley, either, when it comes to that, but rather a row 
of four or five old tenements in a back yard that was 
reached by a passageway somewhat less than three feet 
wide between the sheer walls of the front houses. These 
h 145 



The Wayfarer in New York 

had once had pretensions to some style. One of them had 
been the parsonage of the church next door that had by 
turns been an old-style Methodist tabernacle, a fashionable 
negroes' temple, and an Italian mission church, thus 
marking time, as it were, to the upward movement of the 
immigration that came in at the bottom, down in the 
Fourth Ward, fought its way through the Bloody Sixth, 
and by the time it had travelled the length of Mulberry 
Street had acquired a local standing and the right to be 
counted and rounded up by the political bosses. Now 
the old houses were filled with newspaper offices and given 
over to perpetual insomnia. Week-days and Sundays, 
night or day, they never slept. Police headquarters was 
right across the way, and kept the reporters awake. From 
his window the chief looked down the narrow passageway 
to the bottom of the alley, and the alley looked back at him, 
nothing daunted. No man is a hero to his valet, and the 
chief was not an autocrat to Cat Alley. It knew all his 
human weaknesses, could tell when his time was up 
generally before he could, and winked the other eye with 
the captains when the newspapers spoke of his having read 
them a severe lecture on gambling or Sunday beer-selling. 
Byrnes it worshipped, but for the others who were before 
him and followed after, it cherished a neighborly sort of 
contempt. 

In the character of its population Cat Alley was properly 
cosmopolitan. The only element that was missing was the 
native American, and in this also it was representative of 
the tenement districts in America's chief city. The sub- 
stratum was Irish, of volcanic properties. Upon this were 
imposed layers of German, French, Jewish, and Italian, 
or, as the alley would have put it, Dutch, Sabe, Sheeny, and 
146 



The East Side 

Dago; but to this last it did not take kindly. With the 
experience of the rest of Mulberry Street before it, it fore- 
saw its doom if the Dago got a footing there, and within a 
month of the moving in of the Gio family there was an 
eruption of the basement volcano, reenforced by the sani- 
tary policeman, to whom complaint had been made that 
there were too many "Ginnies" in the Gio flat. There 
were four — about half as many as there were in some of 
the other flats when the item of house rent was lessened 
for economic reasons; but it covered the ground : the flat 
was too small for the Gios. The appeal of the signora was 
unavaiHng. "You got-a three bambino," she said to the 
housekeeper, "all four, Hka me," counting the number 
on her fingers. 'T no putta me broder-in-law and me 
sister in the street-a. Italian lika to be together." 

The housekeeper was unmoved. "Humph!" she said; 
"to Hken my kids to them Dagos! Out they go." And 
they went. 

It had been the talk of the neighborhood for years that 
the alley would have to go in the Elm Street widening which 
was to cut a swath through the block, right over the site 
upon which it stood; and at last notice was given about 
Christmas time that the wreckers were coming. The 
alley was sold, — thirty dollars was all it brought, — and 
the old tenants moved away, and were scattered to the four 
winds. Barney alone stayed. He flatly refused to budge. 
They tore down the church next door and the buildings 
on Houston Street, and filled what had been the yard, or 
court, of the tenements with debris that reached halfway 
to the roof, so that the old locksmith, if he wished to go out 
or in, must do so by way of the third-story window, over 
a perilous path of shaky timbers and sliding brick. He 
147 



The Wayfarer in New York 

evidently considered it a kind of siege, and shut himself 
in his attic, bolting and barring the door, and making secret 
sorties by night for provisions. When the chimney fell 
down or was blown over, he punched a hole in the rear well 
and stuck the stovepipe through that, where it blew de- 
fiance to the new houses springing up almost within arm's 
reach of it. It suggested guns pointing from a fort, and 
perhaps it pleased the old man's soldier fancy. It certainly 
made smoke enough in his room, where he was fighting 
his battles over with himself, and occasionally with the 
janitor from the front, who climbed over the pile of bricks 
and in through the window to bring him water. When 
I visited him there one day, and, after giving the password, 
got behind the bolted door, I found him, the room, and 
everything else absolutely covered with soot, coal black 
from roof to rafter. The password was ''Letter!" yelled 
out loud at the foot of the stairs. That would always 
bring him out, in the belief that the government had finally 
sent him the long-due money. Barney was stubbornly 
defiant, he would stand by his guns to the end ; but he was 
weakening physically under the combined effect of short 
rations and nightly alarms. It was clear that he could 
not stand it much longer. 

The wreckers cut it short one morning by ripping ofif 
the roof over his head before he was up. Then, and only 
then, did he retreat. His exit was characterized by rather 
more haste than dignity. There had been a heavy fall 
of snow overnight, and Barney slid down the jagged slope 
from his window, dragging his trunk with him, in imminent 
peril of breaking his aged bones. That day he disappeared 
from Mulberry Street. I thought he was gone for good, 
and through the Grand Army of the Republic had set 
148 



The East Side 

inquiries on foot to find what had become of him, when one 
day I saw him from my window, standing on the opposite 
side of the street, key-ring in hand, and looking fixedly 
at what had once been the passageway to the alley, but 
was now a barred gap between the houses, leading nowhere. 
He stood there long, gazing sadly at the gateway, at the 
children dancing to the Italian's hand-organ, at Trilby 
trying to look unconcerned on the stoop, and then went 
his way silently, a poor castaway, and I saw him no more. 

So Cat Alley, with all that belonged to it, passed out of 
my life. It had its faults, but it can at least be said of it, 
in extenuation, that it was very human. With them all it 
had a rude sense of justice that did not distinguish its early 
builders. When the work of tearing down had begun, 
I watched, one day, a troop of children having fun with a 
see-saw they had made of a plank laid across a lime barrel. 
The whole Irish contingent rode the plank, all at once, 
with screams of delight. A ragged little girl from the 
despised "Dago" colony watched them from the corner 
with hungry eyes. Big Jane, who was the leader by 
virtue of her thirteen years and her long reach, saw her and 
stopped the show. 

"Here, Mame," she said, pushing one of the smaller 
girls from the plank, "you get off an' let her ride. Her 
mother was stabbed yesterday." 

And the little Dago rode, and was made happy. 

Jacob A. Riis in The Battle with the Slum 

An East Side Music Hall <:^ -^ ^;>y <:^ 

A N orchestra of yellow silk women and bald- 

"^ ^ headed men, on an elevated stage near the center 

of a great green hued hall, played a popular waltz. 
149 



The Wayfarer in New York 

The place was crowded with people grouped about little 
tables. A battalion of waiters slid among the throng, 
carrying trays of beer glasses and making change from the 
inexhaustible vaults of their trousers pockets. Little 
boys, in the costumes of French chefs, paraded up and down 
the irregular aisles vending fancy cakes. There was a low 
rumble of conversation and a subdued clinking of glasses. 
Clouds of tobacco smoke rolled and wavered high in air 
about the dull gilt of the chandeliers. 

The vast crowds had an air throughout of having just 
quitted labor. Men with calloused hands, and attired 
in garments that showed the wear of an endless drudging 
for a living, smoked their pipes contentedly and spent five, 
ten, or perhaps fifteen cents for beer. There was a mere 
sprinkling of men who smoked cigars purchased elsewhere. 
The great body of the crowd was composed of people who 
showed that all day they strove with their hands. Quiet 
Germans, with maybe their wives and two or three children, 
sat listening to the music with the expressions of happy 
cows. An occasional party of sailors from a war ship, 
their faces pictures of sturdy health, spent the earlier hours 
of the evening at the small round tables. Very infrequent 
tipsy men, swollen with the value of their opinions, engaged 
their companions in earnest and confidential conversation. 
In the balcony, and here and there below, shone the im- 
passive faces of women. The nationalities of the Bowery 
beamed upon the stage from all directions. 

Pete walked aggressively up a side aisle and took seats 
with Maggie at a table beneath the balcony. 

''Two beehs!" 

Leaning back, he regarded with eyes of superiority the 
scene before them. This attitude affected Maggie strongly. 
150 



The East Side 

A man who could regard such a sight with indifference 
must be accustomed to very great things. 

It was obvious that Pete had visited this place many times 
before, and was very familiar with it. A knowledge of 
this fact made Maggie feel little and new. 

He was extremely gracious and attentive. He displayed 
the consideration of a cultured gentleman who knew what 
was due. 

"Say, what's eatin' yeh! Bring d' lady a big glass! 
What use is dat pony?" 

** Don't be fresh, now," said the waiter, with some 
warmth, as he departed. 

"Ah, git off d' eart' !" said Pete after the other's retreat- 
ing form. 

Maggie perceived that Pete brought forth all his elegance 
and all his knowledge of high-class customs for her benefit. 
Her heart warmed as she reflected upon his condescension. 

The orchestra of yellow silk women and bald-headed 
men gave vent to a few bars of anticipatory music, and a girl 
in a pink dress with short skirts, galloped upon the stage. 
She smiled upon the throng as if in acknowledgment of 
a warm welcome, and began to walk to and fro, making 
profuse gesticulations, and singing, in brazen soprano 
tones, a song the words of which were inaudible. When 
she broke into the swift rattling measures of a chorus some 
half-tipsy men near the stage joined in the rollicking re- 
frain, and glasses were pounded rhythmically upon the 
tables. People leaned forward to watch her and to try 
to catch the words of the song. When she vanished there 
were long rollings of applause. 

Obedient to more anticipatory bars, she reappeared amid 
the half-suppressed cheering of the tipsy men. The 
151 



The Wayfarer in New York 

orchestra plunged into dance music, and the laces of the 
dancer fluttered and flew in the glare of gas jets. She 
divulged the fact that she was attired in some half dozen 
skirts. It was patent that any one of them would have 
proved adequate for the purpose for which skirts are in- 
tended. An occasional man bent forward, intent upon 
the pink stockings. Maggie wondered at the splendor 
of the costume and lost herself in calculations of the cost 
of the silks and laces. 

The dancer's smile of enthusiasm was turned for ten 
minutes upon the faces of her audience. In the finale 
she fell into some of those grotesque attitudes which were 
at the time popular among the dancers in the theaters up- 
town, giving to the Bowery public the diversions of the 
aristocratic theater-going public at reduced rates. 

"Say, Pete," said Maggie, leaning forward, "dis is great." 

"Sure!" said Pete, with proper complacence. 

A ventriloquist followed the dancer. He held two 
fantastic dolls on his knees. He made them sing mournful 
ditties and say funny things about geography and Ireland. 

''Do dose Httle men talk?" asked Maggie. 

"Naw," said Pete, "it's some big jolly. See?" 

Two girls, set down on the bills as sisters, came forth and 
sang a duet which is heard occasionally at concerts given 
under church auspices. They supplemented it with a dance 
which, of course, can never be seen at concerts given under 
church auspices. 

After they had retired, a woman of debatable age sang 
a negro melody. The chorus necessitated some grotesque 
waddlings supposed to be an imitation of a plantation darky 
under the influence, probably, of music and the moon. 
The audience was just enthusiastic enough over it to have 
152 



The East Side 

her return and sing a sorrowful lay, whose lines told of a 
mother's love, and a sweetheart who waited, and a young 
man who was lost at sea under harrowing circumstances. 
From the faces of a score or so in the crowd the self-con- 
tained look faded. Many heads bent forward with eager- 
ness and sympathy. As the last distressing sentiment 
of the piece was brought forth, it was greeted by the kind 
of applause which rings as sincere. 

As a final effort, the singer rendered some verses which 
described a vision of Britain annihilated by America, and 
Ireland bursting her bonds. A carefully prepared climax 
was reached in the last line of the last verse, when the singer 
threw out her arms and cried, "The Star-spangled Banner." 
Instantly a great cheer swelled from the throats of this 
assemblage of the masses, most of them of foreign birth. 
There was a heavy rumble of booted feet thumping the 
floor. Eyes gleamed with sudden fire, and calloused hands 
waved frantically in the air. 

After a few moments' rest, the orchestra played noisily, 
and a small, fat man burst out upon the stage. He began 
to roar a song, and to stamp back and forth before the foot- 
lights, wildly waving a silk hat and throwing leers broad- 
cast. He made his face into fantastic grimaces until he 
looked like a devil on a Japanese kite. The crowd laughed 
gleefully. His short, fat legs were never still a moment. 
He shouted and roared and bobbed his shock of red wig 
until the audience broke out in excited applause. 

Pete did not pay much attention to the progress of events 
upon the stage. He was drinking beer and watching 
Maggie. 

Her cheeks were blushing with excitement and her eyes 
were glistening. She drew deep breaths of pleasure. No 
^53 



The Wayfarer in New York 

thoughts of the atmosphere of the collar-and-cuff factory 
came to her. 

With the final crash of the orchestra they jostled their 
way to the sidewalk in the crowd. Pete took Maggie's 
arm and pushed a way for her, offering to fight with a man 
or two. They reached Maggie's home at a late hour and 
stood for a moment in front of the gruesome doorway. 

"Say, Mag," said Pete, "give us a kiss for takin' yeh 
t' d' show, will yer? " 

Maggie laughed, as if startled, and drew away from him. 

"Naw, Pete," she said, "dat wasn't in it." 

"Ah, why wasn't it? " urged Pete. 

The girl retreated nervously. 

"Ah, go ahn!" repeated he. 

Maggie darted into the hall, and up the stairs. She 
turned and smiled at him, then disappeared. 

Pete walked slowly down the street. He had something 
of an astonished expression upon his features. He paused 
under a lamp-post and breathed a low breath of surprise. 

"Gee!" he said, "I wonner if I've been played fer a 

duffer." 

From Maggie, by Stephen Crane 

Copyright, i8g6, by D. Appleton &" Co. 

Mulberry Bend ^;^ ^:^ ^Oi^ ^> ^^ 

T^HE Mulberry Bend, the wicked core of the "bloody 
-■- Sixth Ward," was marked for destruction, and 
all slumdom held its breath to see it go. With that gone, 
it seemed as if the old days must be gone too, never 
to return. There would not be another Mulberry Bend. 
As long as it stood, there was yet a chance. The slum had 
backing, as it were. 

154 



The East Side 

What was it like? says a man at my elbow, who never 
saw it. Like nothing I ever saw before, or hope ever to see 
again. A crooked three-acre lot built over with rotten 
structures that harbored the very dregs of humanity. 
Ordinary enough to look at from the street, but pierced 
by a maze of foul alleys, in the depths of which skulked 
the tramp and the outcast thief with loathsome wrecks 
that had once laid claim to the name of woman. Every 
foot of it reeked with incest and murder. Bandits' Roost, 
Bottle Alley, were names synonymous with robbery and red- 
handed outrage. By night, in its worst days, I have gone 
poking about their shuddering haunts with a policeman 
on the beat, and come away in a ferment of anger and dis- 
gust that would keep me awake far into the morning hours 
planning means of its destruction. That was what it was 
like. Thank God, we shall never see another such ! . . , 

I had been out of town and my way had not fallen through 
Mulberry Bend in weeks until that morning when I came 
suddenly upon the park that had been made there in my 
absence. Sod had been laid, and men were going over 
the lawn cutting the grass after the rain. The sun shone 
upon flowers and the tender leaves of young shrubs, and 
the smell of new-mown hay was in the air. Crowds of 
little Italian children shouted with delight over the "garden," 
while their elders sat around upon the benches with a look 
of contentment such as I had not seen before in that place. 
I stood and looked at it all, and a lump came in my throat 
as I thought of what it had been, and of all the weary years 
of battling for this. It had been such a hard fight, and 
now at last it was won. To me the whole battle with the 
slum had summed itself up in the struggle with this dark 
spot. . . . 

155 



The Wayfarer in New York 

In fifteen years I never knew a week to pass without 
a murder there, rarely a Sunday. It was the wickedest, 
as it was the foulest, spot in all the city. In the slum the 
two are interchangeable terms for reasons that are clear 
enough for me. But I shall not speculate about it, only 
state the facts. The old houses fairly reeked with outrage 
and violence. When they were torn down, I counted 
seventeen deeds of blood in that place which I myself 
remembered, and those I had forgotten probably numbered 
seven times seventeen. The district attorney connected 
more than a score of murders of his own recollection with 
Bottle Alley, the Whyo Gang's headquarters. Five years 
have passed since it was made into a park, and scarce 
a knife had been drawn or a shot fired in all that neigh- 
borhood. Only twice have I been called as a police re- 
porter to the spot. It is not that the murder has moved 
to another neighborhood, for there has been no increase 
of violence in Little Italy or wherever else the crowd went 
that moved out. It is that the light has come in and made 
crime hideous. It is being let in wherever the slum has 
bred murder and robbery, bred the gang, in the past. 

Jacob A. Riis in The Battle with the Slum 

^'My Vacation on the East Side" ^^ ^^^ ^> 

"/^^REEN fields, fair forests, singing streams, pine- 
^-^ clad mountains, verdant vistas — from the monot- 
ony of the city to the monotony of nature. I wanted 
a complete change, and so I went to the East Side of 
New York for my vacation. That is where I have been." 
Thus did our friend explain his strange disappearance 
and unusual absence from Boston for a whole week. For 
the first time since he came here from New York he had 
156 



The East Side 

been missing from his home, his regular haunts, such as 
the caf^s, Jewish book-stores and the debating club, and 
none of those whom I asked knew whither he had betaken 
himself. The direct cause of his disappearance, explained 
Keidansky, was a railroad pass, which he had secured from 
a friendly editor for whom he had done some work. He 
went on explaining. "I wanted to break away for a while 
from the sameness and solemnness, the routine and re- 
spectability of this town, from my weary idleness, empty 
labors, and uniformity of our ideas here, so when the op- 
portunity was available I took a little journey to the big 
metropolis. One becomes rusty and falls into a rut in 
this suburb. I was becoming so sedate, stale and quiet 
that I was beginning to be afraid of myself. The revo- 
lutionary spirit has somewhat subsided. Many of the 
comrades have gone back on their ideas, have begun to 
practise what they preach, to improve their conditions by 
going into business and into work, and I often feel lonely. 
Anti-imperialism, Christian Science and the New Thought 
are amusing; but there is not enough excitement here. 
Boston is not progressive; there are not enough foreigners 
in this city. People from many lands with all sorts of ideas 
and the friction that arises between them — that causes 
progress. New York is the place, and it is also the refuge 
of all radicals, revolutionaries, and good people whom the 
wicked old world has cast out. America, to retain its orig- 
inal character, must constantly be replenished by hounded 
refugees and victims of persecution in despotic lands. 
To remain lovers of freedom we must have sufferers from 
oppression with us. Sad commentary, this, upon our hu- 
man nature; but so are nearly all commentaries upon 
human nature. Commentaries upon the superhuman 
157 



The Wayfarer in New York 

are tragic. New York with its Germans and Russians 
and Jews is a characteristic American city. Boston and 
other places are too much like Europe — cold, narrow 
and provincial. I came to Boston some time ago because 
I had relatives here — the last reason in the world why 
any one should go anywhere; but I was ignorant and 
superstitious in those days. I have since managed to 
emancipate myself, more or less, from the baneful influences 
of those near; but meanwhile I have established myself, 
have become interested in the movements and institutions 
of the community, and here I am. The symphony con- 
certs, the radical movement, the library, lectures on art, 
the sunsets over the Charles River, the Faneuil Hall 
protest meetings against everything that continues to be, 
the literary paper published, the Atlantic Monthly, Ga- 
maliel Bradford, Philip Hale and so many other fixtures 
of Boston have since endeared it to me and I stayed. Be- 
sides, it would cost me too much to ship all my books 
to New York. . . . But this time I wanted a complete 
change; I wanted something to move and stir me out of 
the given groove, the beaten path I was falling into, some 
excitement that would shake the cobwebs out of my brain, 
so I turned towards the East Side. 

"They are all there, the comrades, the radicals, the red 
ones, and dreamers ; people who are free because they own 
nothing. Poets, philosophers, novelists, dramatists, artists, 
editors, agitators, and other idle and useless beings, they 
form a great galaxy in the New York Ghetto. For several 
years, ever since I left New York, I had been receiving 
instruction and inspiration from them through the medium 
of the Yiddish and the Socialist press, where my own things 
often appeared beside their spirited outpourings, and now 
158 



The East Side 

I was overcome by an overpowering desire to meet them 
again, talk matters over and fight it all out. There is no 
sham about the East Side branch of the ancient and most 
honorable order of Bohemians — the little changing, mov- 
ing world that is flowing with the milk of human kindness 
and the honey of fraternal affections, where those who live 
may die and those who die may live. Here among the 
East Side Bohemians people feel freely, act independently, 
speak as they think and are not at all ashamed of their 
feelings. They have courage. They wear their convictions 
in public. They do as they please, whether that pleases 
everybody else or not. They talk with the purpose of 
saying something. They write with the object of express- 
ing their ideas. They tell the truth and shame those who 
do not. Hearts are warm because they own their souls. 
Those who really own their souls will never lose them. . . . 
"1 cannot tell you more, but these meetings and these 
talks at various times and in various places made my 
vacation on the East Side delightful. Then there were 
lectures and meetings and social gatherings of the com- 
rades. The sun of new ideas rises on the East Side. 
Everywhere you meet people who are ready to fight for 
what they believe in and who not do believe in fighting. 
For a complete change and for pure air you must go among 
the people who think about something, have faith in some- 
thing. Katz, Cahan, Gordin, Yanofsky, Zolotaroff, 
Harkavy, Frumkin, Krantz, Zanetkin, Zeifert, Lessin, 
Elisovitz, Winchevsky, Jeff, Leontief, Lipsky, Freidus, 
Frominson, Selikowitch, Palay, Barondess, and many 
other intellectual leaders, come into the cafes to pour out 
wisdom and drink tea, and here comes also Hutchins 
Hapgood to get his education. Each man bears his own 
159 



The Wayfarer in New York 

particular lantern, it is true, but each one carries a light 
and every one brings a man with him. . . . 

"Why," added Keidansky, as a final thunderbolt, 

"I have gained enough ideas on the East Side 

to last me here in Boston for ten years." 

Bernard G. Richards 

in Discourses of Keidansky. 

By permission 



i6o 



VI 



FROM UNION SQUARE TO MADISON 
SQUARE 



UNION SQUARE 

WHEN night descends, electric argent lamps, 
Like radiant cactus blossoms, blaze on high; 
The city seems a world of warlike camps, 

While Broadway with his legions thunders by. 

Walter Malone 



VI 



FROM UNION SQUARE TO MADISON 
SQUARE 

On the ''Rialto" ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^y -^i, 

T TE was one of those wanderers who leave their homes to 
-'- -■- try their fortunes in large cities and who go from 
place to place with no certain means of earning a living 
but with a resourceful knowledge of how to support 
themselves from day to day. He had begun life as a 
hotel clerk, and had left his desk to sell tickets in the 
box office of a theater. Then he had gone as the ''press 
agent" of a theatrical company "on the road," and when 
the failure of the company had left him "stranded" in 
a Western town, he had done some newspaper work, 
managed a news-stand in Chicago, been conductor on a 
street-car in St. Louis, worked in a cigar shop in Pittsburg, 
traveled in the cabooses of freight trains to New England, 
"clerked it" in Boston, and come to New York as helper 
to a baggage man on a passenger boat. Here, fascinated 
by the life of the "Rialto" — which satisfied all his rest- 
less cravings for Bohemianism and continual change — he 
had lived in the background of the stage world, a looker-on, 
playing "thinking parts," in Broadway theaters, sometimes 
assisting in stage management in the cheaper houses and 
sometimes returning to the ticket wicket of a box office. 
Lately he had had a "run of bad luck" and he had been 
left for the summer with nothing to do but this "boosting" 
163 



The Wayfarer in New York 

and "spieling" at Coney Island, or on the Bowery. He 
had been going the round of the employment agencies 
on the morning he met Don. *'As soon as the theatrical 
season opens," he said, "I'll be all right." . . . 

The "Rialto," on these August mornings, was the resort 
of all the actors and actresses who were still in search of 
an engagement for the "season"; and Don accompanied 
Walter Pittsey, from agency to agency, in the atmosphere 
of a life that was new to him. Here were the leading men 
of road companies, bearing themselves with an obvious 
"stage presence," dressed in the correct summer costume 
of the footlights and preserving the unreality of the stage 
in the very faultlessness of clothes that had the appearance 
of being part of a theatrical "wardrobe." Here were 
comedians, more or less "low," who carried a lighter man- 
ner, a necktie fluttering in the breeze, a straw hat slanted 
over the eyes, a hand waved in an airy greeting as they 
hurried by. Chorus girls of conspicuous complexions, in 
gowns of lace and applique, raised their dragging skirts 
to show silk petticoats of pink or green, and stared through 
their heavy chiffon veils at the would-be "ingenues" in 
their simple frocks. Soubrettes, "heavies," "general 
utilities" and young graduates from dramatic schools, 
walked haughtily past the groups of untrained and awk- 
ward beginners who had registered — as Don had — with 
the agent who engaged "supers." And they all passed 
and repassed, met and nodded, bowed and shook hands 
effusively, in a way that reminded Don of the students 
in the college corridors, meeting after their Christmas 
holidays, hailing friends and acknowledging acquaintances. 
There was the same air of camaraderie, tempered by the 
same marked distinction of distance in the manner of the 
164 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

upper years to the lower ones ; there was the same tone of 
social irresponsibility in the circle of a privileged life; 
and there was the same note of unreality and evanescence 
derived, in this case, from the exaggerated manner of 
these Bohemians who *'made up" for the street as if for 
a stage entrance and walked in the sunshine as if it had 
been a calcium light. 

Harvey J. O'Higgins in Don-A-Dreams 
Copyright, IQ06, by The Century Co. 

The Art and Nature Club ^^ ^^ -^ -^> 
"AT the Art and Nature Club you can dress as much 

•^^ or as little as you please, and we can get a table 
in a cosey corner, and afterwards sit about upstairs for 
an hour, for there will be music to-night. I have asked 
Martin Cortright to join us. It has its interesting side, 
this — a transplanted Englishman married to a country 
girl, introducing old bred-in-the-bone New Yorkers to 
New Manhattan." 

We did not tell Miss Lavinia where we were going until 
we were almost there, and she was quite upset, as dining 
at the two or three hotels and other places affected by the 
Whirlpoolers implies a careful and special toilet to run the 
gauntlet of society reporters, for every one is somebody 
in one sense, though in another "nobody is really any one." 

She was reassured, however, the moment that she drew 
her high-backed oak chair up to the table that Evan had 
reserved in a little alcove near the fireplace. Before the 
oysters arrived, and Martin Cortright appeared to fill the 
fourth seat, she had completely relaxed, and was beaming 
at the brass jugs and pottery beakers ranged along a shelf 
above the dark wainscot, and at the general company, 
165 



The Wayfarer in New York 

while the warmth from the fire logs gave her really a very 
pretty color, and she began to question Martin as to who 
all these people, indicating the rapidly filling up tables, 
were. But Martin gazed serenely about and confessed 
he did not know. 

The people came singly, or in twos and threes, men and 
women together or alone, a fact at which Miss Lavinia 
greatly marvelled. Greetings were exchanged, and there 
was much visiting from table to table, as if the footing was 
that of a private house. 

"Nice-looking people," said Miss Lavinia, meditatively 
scrutinizing the room through her lorgnette without a trace 
of snobbery in her voice or attitude, yet I was aware that 
she was mentally drawing herself apart. ''Some of them 
quite unusual, but there is not a face here that I ever saw 
in society. Are they members of the Club? Where do 
they come from? Where do they Hve?" 

Evan's lips shut together a moment before he answered, 
and I saw a certain steely gleam in his eye that I always 
regarded as a danger signal. 

"Perhaps they might ask the same question about you,'* 
he answered; "though they are not Hkely to, their world 
is so much broader. They are men and women chiefly 
having an inspiration, an art or craft, or some vital reason 
for living besides the mere fact that it has become a habit. 
They are none of them rich enough to be disagreeable or 
feel that they own the right to trample on their fellows. 
They all Hve either in or near New York, as best suits 
their means, vocations, and temperaments. Men and 
women together, they represent, as well as a gathering 
can, the hopeful spirit of our New York of New Manhattan 
that does not grovel to mere money power." 
i66 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

Miss Lavinia seemed a little abashed, but Martin Cort- 
right, who had been a silent observer until now, said: "It 
surprises me to see fraternity of this sort in the midst of 
so many institutions of specialized exclusiveness and the 
decadence of clubs that used to be veritable brotherhoods 
by unwise expansion. I like the general atmosphere, it 
seems cheerful, and, if one may blend the terms, con- 
servatively Bohemian." 

"Come upstairs before the music begins, so that we 
can get comfortably settled in the background, that 
I may tell you who some of these 'unknown-to-Whirl- 
pool-society ' people are. You may be surprised," said 
Evan to Miss Lavinia, who had by this time finished 
her cofifee. 

The rooms were cheerful with artistic simplicity. The 
piano had been moved from the lounging room into the 
picture gallery opposite to where a fine stained-glass win- 
dow was exhibited, backed by electric lights. 

We stowed ourselves away in a deep seat, shaped some- 
thing like an old-fashioned school form, backed and 
cushioned with leather, to watch the audience gather. 
Every phase of dress was present, from the ball gown to 
the rainy weather skirt, and enough of each grade to keep 
one another in countenance. About half the men wore 
evening suits, but those who did not were completely at 
their ease. 

There was no regular ushering to seats, but every one 
was placed easily and naturally. Evan, who had Miss 
Lavinia in charge, was alert, and rather, it seemed to me, 
on the defensive; but though Martin asked questions, he 
was comfortably soothing, and seemed to take in much at 
a glance. 

167 



The Wayfarer in New York 

That short man with the fine head, white hair and beard, 
aquiline nose, and intense eyes is not only a poet, but the 
first American critic of pure literature. He lives out of 
town, but comes to the city daily for a certain stimulus. 
The petite woman with the pretty color who has crossed 
the room to speak to him is the best known writer of New 
England romance. That shy-looking fellow standing 
against the curtain at your right, with the brown mustache 
and broad forehead, is the New England sculptor whose 
forcible creations are known everywhere, yet he is almost 
shrinkingly modest, and he never, it seems, even in thought, 
has broken the injunction of "Let another praise thee, not 
thine own lips." 

Half a dozen promising painters are standing in the door- 
way talking to a young woman who, beginning with news- 
paper work, has stepped suddenly into a niche of fiction. 
The tall, loose-jointed man at the left of the group, the 
editor of a conservative monthly, has for his vis-a-vis the 
artist who has had so much to do with the redemption of 
American architecture and decoration from the mongrel 
period of the middle century. Another night you may 
not see a single one of these faces, but another set, yet 
equally interesting. 

Meanwhile Martin Cortright had discovered a man, 
a financier and also a book collector of prominence, who 
was reputed to have a complete set of some early records 
that he had long wished to consult; he had never found 
a suitable time for meeting him, as the man, owing to hav- 
ing been oftentime the prey of both unscrupulous dealers 
and parasitic friends, was esteemed difficult. 

Infected by the freedom of his surroundings, Martin 
plucked up courage and spoke to him, the result being 
1 68 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

an interchange cf cards, book talk, and an invitation to 
visit the library. 

Mabel Osgood Wright in People of the Whirlpool 



Mannahatta <:^ ^c> ^> ^^^ ,^o ^::y 

T WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my 
city. 

Whereupon, lo ! up sprang the aboriginal name. 

Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, 
unruly, musical, self-sufficient, 

I see that the word of my city is that word from of old. 

Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, 
superb. 

Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and steam- 
ships, an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded, 

Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender, 
strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies, 

Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sun- 
down. 

The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining 
islands, the heights, the villas. 

The countless masts, the white shore -steamers, the lighters, 
the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model'd. 

The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business, the 
houses of business of the ship-merchants and money- 
brokers, the river-streets. 

Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week, 

The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses, 
the brown-faced sailors, 

The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing 
clouds aloft, 

169 



The Wayfarer in New York 

The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the 

river, passing along up or down with the flood-tide 

or ebb-tide, 
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form'd, 

beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes, 
Trottoirs throng'd, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the 

shops and shows, 
A million people — manners free and superb — open voices 

— hospitality — the most courageous and friendly 

young men. 
City of hurried and sparkling waters ! city of spires and 

masts ! 
City nested in bays ! my city ! 

Walt Whitman 

A Philistine in Bohemia ^^ ^> ^^^ ^^ 
/^EORGE WASHINGTON, with his right arm up- 
^-^ raised, sits his iron horse at the lower corner of 
Union Square, forever signalling the Broadway cars to 
stop as they round the curve into Fourteenth Street. But 
the cars buzz on, heedless, as they do at the beck of a private 
citizen, and the great General must feel, unless his nerves 
are iron, that rapid transit gloria mundi. 

Should the General raise his left hand as he has raised 
his right it would point to a quarter of the city that forms 
a haven for the oppressed and suppressed of foreign lands. 
In the cause of national or personal freedom they have 
found a refuge here, and the patriot who made it for them 
sits his steed, overlooking their district, while he listens 
through his left ear to vaudeville that caricatures the pos- 
terity of his proteges. Italy, Poland, the former Spanish 
possessions and the polyglot tribes of Austria-Hungary 
170 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

have spilled here a thick lather of their effervescent 
sons. 

Kate Dempsey's mother kept a furnished -room house in 
this oasis of the aliens. The business was not profitable. 
If the two scraped together enough to meet the landlord's 
agent on rent day and negotiate for the ingredients of 
a daily Irish stew they called it success. Often the stew 
lacked both meat and potatoes. Sometimes it became as 
bad as consomme with music. 

In this mouldy old house Katy waxed plump and pert 
and wholesome and as beautiful and freckled as a tiger 
lily. She was the good fairy who was guilty of placing 
the damp, clean towels and cracked pitchers of freshly 
laundered Croton in the lodgers' rooms. 

You are informed (by virtue of the privileges of as- 
tronomical discovery) that the star lodger's name was Mr. 
Brunelli. His wearing a yellow tie and paying his rent 
promptly distinguished him from the other lodgers. His 
raiment was splendid, his complexion olive, his mustache 
fierce, his manners a prince's, his rings and pins as mag- 
nificent as those of a travelling dentist. . . . 

"Sure, I like him," said Katy. "He's more politeness 
than twinty candidates for Alderman, and he makes me 
feel like a queen whin he walks at me side. But what is 
he, I dinno? I've me suspicions. The marnin' '11 coom 
whin he'll throt out the picture av his baronial halls and 
ax to have the week's rint hung up in the ice chist along 
wid all the rist of 'em." 

"'Tis thrue," admitted Mrs. Dempsey, "that he seems 

to be a sort iv a Dago, and too coolchured in his spache 

for a rale gintleman. But ye may be misjudgin' him. 

Ye should niver suspect any wan of bein' of noble 

171 



The Wayfarer in New York 

descint that pays cash and pathronizes the laundry rig'- 
lar." 

"He's the same thricks of spakin' and blarneyin' wid 
his hands," sighed Katy, "as the Frinch nobleman at Mrs. 
Toole's that ran away wid Mr. Toole's Sunday pants and 
left the photograph of the Bastile, his grandfather's chat- 
taw, as security for tin weeks' rint." 

Mr. Brunelli continued his calorific wooing. Katy con- 
tinued to hesitate. One day he asked her out to dine, and 
she felt that a denouement was in the air. While they are 
on their way, with Katy in her best muslin, you must take 
as an entr'acte a brief peep at New York's Bohemia. 

'Tonio's restaurant is in Bohemia. The very location 
of it is secret. If you wish to know where it is ask the 
first person you meet. He will tell you in a whisper. 
'Tonio discountenances custom; he keeps his house- 
front black and forbidding; he gives you a pretty bad 
dinner; he locks his door at the dining hour; but he 
knows spaghetti as the boarding-house knows cold veal; 
and — he has deposited many dollars in a certain Banco 
di — something with many gold vowels in the name on 
its windows. 

To this restaurant Mr. Brunelli conducted Katy. The 
house was dark and the shades were lovv^ered; but Mr. 
Brunelli touched an electric button by the basement door, 
and they were admitted. 

Along a long, dark, narrow hallway they went and 
then through a shining and spotless kitchen that opened 
directly upon a back yard. 

The walls of houses hemmed three sides of the yard; 
a high, broad fence, surrounded by cats, the other. A wash 
of clothes was suspended high upon a line stretched from 
172 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

diagonal corners. Those were property clothes, and were 
never taken in by 'Tonio. They were there that wits 
with defective pronunciation might make puns in con- 
nection with the ragout. . . . 

Mr. Brunelli escorted Katy to a little table embowered 
with shrubbery in tubs, and asked her to excuse him for 
a while. 

Katy sat enchanted by a scene so brilliant to her. The 
grand ladies, in splendid dresses and plumes and sparkling 
rings; the fine gentlemen who laughed so loudly, the cries 
of ''Garsong!" and "We, monseer," and ''Hello, Mame!" 
that distinguish Bohemia; the lively chatter, the cigarette 
smoke, the interchange of bright smiles and eye-glances — 
all this display and magnificence overpowered the daughter 
of Mrs. Dempsey and held her motionless. 

Mr. Brunelli stepped into the yard and seemed to spread 
his smile and bow over the entire company. And every- 
where there was a great clapping of hands and a few cries 
of "Bravo!" and "'Tonio! 'Tonio!" whatever those 
words might mean. Ladies waved their napkins at him, 
gentlemen almost twisted their necks off, trying to catch 
his nod. 

When the ovation was concluded Mr. Brunelli, with 
a final bow, stepped nimbly into the kitchen and flung off 
his coat and waistcoat. 

Flaherty, the nimblest "garsong" among the waiters, 
had been assigned to the special service of Katy. She was 
a little faint from hunger, for the Irish stew on the Dempsey 
table had been particularly weak that day. Delicious odors 
from unknown dishes tantalized her. And Flaherty began 
to bring to her table course after course of ambrosial food 
that the gods might have pronounced excellent. 
173 



The Wayfarer in New York 

But even in the midst of her Lucullian repast Katy laid 
down her knife and fork. Her heart sank as lead, and a 
tear fell upon her filet mignon. Her haunting suspicions 
of the star lodger arose again, fourfold. Thus courted 
and admired and smiled upon by that fashionable and 
gracious assembly, what else could Mr. Brunelli be but 
one of those dazzling titled patricians, glorious of name 
but shy of rent money, concerning whom experience had 
made her wise? With a sense of his ineligibility growing 
within her there was mingled a torturing conviction that 
his personality was becoming more pleasing to her day 
by day. And why had he left her to dine alone? . . . 

At last the company thinned, leaving but few couples 
and quartettes lingering over new wine and old stories. 
And then came Mr. Brunelli to Katy's secluded table, 
and drew a chair close to hers. 

Katy smiled at him dreamily. She was eating the last 
spoonful of a raspberry roll with Burgundy sauce. 

"You have seen!" said Mr. Brunelli, laying one hand 
upon his collar bone. "1 am Antonio BrunelH ! Yes; 
I am the great 'Tonio ! You have not suspect that ! I loave 
you, Katy, and you shall marry with me. Is it not so? 
Call me * Antonio,' and say that you will be mine." 

Katy's head dropped to the shoulder that was now 
freed from all suspicion of having received the knightly 
accolade. 

*'Oh, Andy," she sighed, ''this is great! Sure, I'll 
marry wid ye. But why didn't ye tell me ye was the cook ? 
I was near turnin' ye down for being one of thim foreign 
counts!" 

O. Henry in The Voice of the City 

Copyright, igo8. By permission of Doubleday, Page &= Co. 
174 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

At the Old Bull's Head, 1878 ^. -<:> -=^ 

"\ TEW YORKERS who were of the rising generation 
^ ^ twenty-five and thirty years ago, recall a burly phrase, 
now obsolete, then passing current in the gossip of their 
elders; as when some retailer of scandal would say: ''But 
you mayn't tell So-and-so of it, or it will be known 
before night from Bull's Head to the Battery." Many 
whose ears were wonted to this phrase in childhood, 
never understood its local origin and literal meaning. 
Yet for a hundred and fifty years. Bull's Head Tavern 
with its cattle-market had been one of the institutions of 
Manhattan, — the main outpost of the city in its steady 
march northward to the Harlem River. 

Respect for the pleading relics of the past is growing 
in New York, if even one out of a thousand journeying 
every quarter hour on Third Avenue, sees anything to 
awaken a pleasant thought at Twenty-Fourth Street, where, 
looking westward, the eye is arrested by two long rows of 
mostly mean, low stables bordering a badly paved and 
littered street, before it can reach a charming background 
picture formed of the foliage and stately edifices of Madison 
Square. Turning eastward more stables form an un- 
pleasant foreground to the sail-studded waters of the East 
River. There on the northwest corner stands the presiding 
genius of this unkempt scene, Old Bull's Head Tavern, 
brown, angular and homely. Only an etching could 
catch the elusive charm of this weather-beaten structure. 
The more minutely it is described, the homelier it will 
appear. 

In the earlier periods of new communities, the old 
butchers' association had the pompous airs of an Antwerp 
Guild. In all civic festivals it was an indispensable factor, 
^75 



The Wayfarer in New York 

and took a prominent part in the great federal procession 
of July 23, 1788. 

Bull's Head Tavern advanced gradually to its present 
position in Twenty-Fourth Street. A little more than two 
hundred years ago, when Peter Stuyvesant's wooden leg 
thumped across the floors of the Stadt Huys in Whitehall, 
the livestock market adjoined Trinity churchyard. Years 
afterward a drover's inn was built at the gates of the city, 
on the present site of the Astor House, where from 1720 till 
1740 Adam Van der Bergh, a genial host, discussed cattle 
and small ale with the drovers. Bull's Head in the Bowery, 
with Stephen Carpenter as host, and standing where the 
Bowery Theater now is, was the last halting place for the 
stages, before the gallant six were whipped down Chatham 
Square and up Chatham Street to enter the city with dash 
and clatter. . . . 

About the year 1825 the butchers' association purchased 
two blocks of ground on Twenty-Fourth Street between 
Third and Lexington Avenues, and converted the space 
into cattle yards, Thomas Swift of Poughkeepsie at the 
same time building Bull's Head Tavern. He was not a 
successful tavern keeper and rented the hostelry to David 
Valentine. The latter also abdicated about 1820 in favor 
of Daniel Drew. The reign of *' Uncle Dan'l," as he was 
called, was the golden age at Bull's Head. The old sign- 
board swung from a post at the corner of the street, and 
underneath it hung the cheerful dinner bell. A low Dutch 
stable stood beyond, and in front of this a wooden pump 
and trough. Cattle pens filled the remaining space to 
Lexington Avenue and also the opposite side of the street. 

At that time Third Avenue was macadamized from 
Eighth Street to Spark's Four Mile House at Sixtieth 
176 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

Street, the two miles between the latter being the finest 
drive on Manhattan Island. . . . 

In 1848, the cattle market was warned by the encroaching 
population to move on. When the butchers and drovers 
withdrew from Bull's Head in Twenty-Fourth Street, the 
horse-dealers eagerly took possession, making it the equine 
capital of this continent, and perhaps of the world. 

C. C. BUEL 

Scribner's Monthly, January, 1879 

The Social Map ^;:> ^> ^Ciy ^c^ ^^ 

A MONG the many peculiarities which contribute to 
"^^*' make New York unlike other cities is the construc- 
tion of what may be called its social map. As in the 
puzzles used in teaching children geography, all the pieces 
are of different shapes, different sizes and different colors ; 
but they fit neatly together in the compact whole though 
the lines which define each bit are distinctly visible, especially 
when the map has been long used by the industrious child. 
What calls itself society everywhere else calls itself society 
in New York also, but whereas in European cities one 
instinctively speaks of the social scale, one familiar with 
New York people will be much more inclined to speak of 
the social map. I do not mean to hint that society here 
exists on a dead level, but the absence of tradition, of all 
acknowledged precedents and of all outward and perceptible 
distinctions makes it quite impossible to define the position 
of any one set in regard to another by the ordinary scale 
of superiority or inferiority. In London or Paris, for 
instance, ambitious persons are spoken of as climbing ; in 
New York it would be more correct to speak of them as 
migrating or attempting to migrate from one social field 
N 177 



The Wayfarer in New York 

to the next. It is impossible to imagine fields real or 
metaphorical yielding more different growths under the 
same sky. 

F. Marion Crawford in Marion Darche 



To the Farragut Statue ^> <;:> ^;^ 

*0 live a hero, then to stand 
In bronze serene above the city's throng; 
Hero at sea, and now on land 

Revered by thousands as they rush along; 



T 



If these were all the gifts of fame — 

To be a shade amid alert reality, 
And win a statue and a name — 

How cold and cheerless immortality! 

But when the sun shines in the Square, 
And multitudes are swarming in the street, 

Children are always gathered there, 
Laughing and playing round the hero's feet. 

And in the crisis of the game — 

With boyish grit and ardor it is played — 

You'll hear some youngster call his name: 
"The Admiral — he never was afraid!" 

And so the hero daily lives. 

And boys grow braver as the Man they see ! 
The inspiration that he gives 

Still helps to make them loyal, strong, and free ! 

Robert Bridges in Bramble Brae 
Copyright, igo2, by Charles Scribner's Sons 
178 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

Madison Square Garden ^^:i^ ^> ^c> ^o 

TF there is any more beautiful temple of pleasure in the 
-'- world than Madison Square Garden, it must be in some 
of the undiscovered regions, for it has not yet been seen 
by civilized men trying to forget civilization. 

What forms of amusement has the New Yorker not seen 
in this microcosm? Here he is brought as a child to see 
the Greatest Show on Earth on a greater scale than in 
any tent — though not so easy to crawl under. Here the 
menagerie has overwhelmed him with its animals almost 
as fearful and wonderful as the menagerie of adjectives 
Tony Hamilton has gathered out of the backwoods of 
the dictionary. That complicated, noisy menagerie smell 
has dislocated his nose, as later the three-ring circus has 
dislocated his eyes. 

Playing so important a part in the New York child's 
education, it is small wonder he loves it when he is grown. 
And it grows with him; for when the circus is over, he 
goes to the Dog Show, and gets deliciously frightened out 
of his wits by the barking of a thousand canines, leaping 
and tugging at their chains, and thrusting their heads out 
to bite, or, what is worse, to lather him with their impartial 
tongues. His little sister is taken to the Cat Show, where 
the priceless Angoras doze and purr, and where the town's 
practical joker, Bryan G. Hughes, once took first prize with 
a common tomcat picked up in the gutter. Once a year 
the Garden calls in all the country cousins and the farmers, 
real or amateur, to see the Poultry Show, where lovers of 
the Plymouth Rock can quarrel with the devotees of the 
Brahma and the Cochin China, and where the gamecocks 
and the featherweight bantams challenge one another to 
mortal combat all day long in safety. 
179 



The Wayfarer in New York 

When the New Yorker grows older he probably joins a 
regiment — Squadron A, or the Seventh if he has the price 
— one of the others otherwise. The Mihtary Tourna- 
ment draws him to the Garden next, and his heart jounces 
as he sees the cavalryman running alongside his bareback 
horses, four abreast, and, as they take a hurdle, vaulting 
across three loping steeds and flouncing squarely on the 
fourth horse, but facing toward the tail. There he will 
see the artillery teams come dashing round the oval, 
swirling the tanbark in clouds as they slidder on a sharp 
turn and nicely drive between the narrow posts. There the 
New Yorker's ears crackle from the musketry and can- 
nonade of the sham battles. Each of the regiments is 
represented in the opening review, and then the Canadians 
stalk in in khaki and the gorgeous Highlanders, with their 
squealing bagpipes, flaunt their tartans. 

In this big space the New Yorker has seen the charge 
up San Juan Hill done in miniature, and the tears came 
to his eyes as the boys swung past chanting, ''There'll 
be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night." It was at 
"The Wild West Show" he saw this, for the show has other 
things to tempt the spectator weary of Indians. But who 
can ever weary of the tame savages in their outrageous 
make-up, or the old Deadwood stagecoach that goes round 
and round, pursued by Indians shooting it full of paper 
wads and falling off to the ground as they themselves die 
twice a day from an overdose of blank cartridges? 

The famous six-day bicycle race takes place here an- 
nually, and all night long the benches are crowded with 
enthusiasts watching the jaded riders pumping away on 
their eternal treadles. The yellow journals picture them 
as going mad with fatigue, but in reality they bear the grind 
1 80 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

with amazing indifference, except when a spectator offers 
a cash prize for a short race; then they brighten up and 
flash round Hke demons. They seem always to keep one 
more spurt up their sleeves. 

Then there's the Sportsmen's Show, and the building be- 
comes a great landscape, with all manner of wild places 
condensed into one medley. This year one end was a 
range of mountains with real trees and real streams of real 
water. The water turned two old-fashioned wheels and 
then cascaded into a big lake in the center. One end of 
the lake was thick with all manner of waterfowl, and in 
another part was a fish hatchery, where trout went to 
school from the day of their birth to their day of readiness 
for a frying-pan diploma. . . . 

Rupert Hughes in The Real New York 
Copyright, IQ04 

A Song of City Traffic ^^ ^:y ^^ ^>y 

T HAVE heard the roar and clamor through the city's 

■^ crowded ways 

Of the never-ending pageant moving down the busy 

days — 
Coaches, wagons, hearses, engines, clanging cars, and 

thundering drays! 

I have watched them moving past me as the day began to 

dawn; 
I have watched them creeping onward when the sun's last 

light was gone. 
Like a serpent long and sinuous, ghding on, and on, and on. 

Never, since I can remember, has this long procession 
ceased; 

181 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Rather has the surging torrent ever lengthened and in- 
creased, 

And the human traffic changed not — prince and beggar, 
fool and priest. 

They have marched, and still are marching, through the 
city's wilderness — 

O the sadness of their going who shall know or who shall 
guess ? 

Prophet, lady, sage, and merchant, cap-and-bells in wis- 
dom's dress! 

Ah ! poor throngs of the great city, drops within that mighty 

stream. 
When the night descends upon you and the streets are all 

agleam. 
Of some distant hills of silence do your worn hearts never 

dream ? 

When the brazen voice of traffic and the loud call of the 

mart 
Strangle all the hope within you, bruise your soul and break 

your heart, 
Do you think of some far valley where life plays another 

part? 

Sometimes in your startled slumbers, ere the morn comes 

up again. 
Do you dream of some blue mountain or some wonderful 

green glen. 
Where the silver voice of silence calls the weary world of 

men? 

182 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

Or perhaps you dream, as I do, of the quiet woodland 

ways; 
But the long procession lures you through the fleeting nights 

and days, 
And you miss the old, old beauty for which still your spirit 

prays; 

Miss it all, and, missing, weep not; join once more the 

bands of trade. 
Join again the city's tumult, that long clamoring parade — 
Join once more the foolish struggle which not God, but 

man, has made 1 

Losing love and losing friendship, making life but wounds 

and scars- 
Missing beauty and calm rapture, and the shelter of the 

stars — 
Poor, sad mortals, hearing only noise of wheels and clang 

of cars ! 

Charles Hanson Towne 
Copyright, igo8, by B. W. Dodge (Sr' Co. 

A Bird's-Eye View from the Waldorf ^:> ^^:> 

/^N the first morning I got up and went to my 
^-^ eighth-story window: New York was spread out 
in bright sunshine below. Never have I seen a city 
more hideous or more splendid. Uncouth, formless, pie- 
bald, chaotic, it yet stamps itself upon you as the most 
magnificent embodiment of Titanic energy and force. 

The foreground of my picture was a lightning-conductor, 
sweeping down from some dizzy, unimagined height aslant 
to the street below. Beneath was a wing of the Waldorf; 
183 



The Wayfarer in New York 

on the left a deep, silent courtyard, whence some pittance 
of air and light filtered into the lower floors; on the right 
a huge skeleton of iron girders that is to fill out into yet 
another gigantic branch of this gigantic hotel. Beyond 
lay the red, flat, sloping roofs of two streets of houses 
four or five-storyed, with trees straggling up to the light 
between them : this might have been a bit of Bloomsbury. 
Beyond these, shutting out the direct front, rose to double 
their height the great, square, dirty white-and-yellow back 
of a huge Broadway store ; the blind-looking windows and 
outside iron stairs contradicted the comfortable Blooms- 
bury streets with a suggestion of overcrowding and squalor. 
To the right of this, half-covered with creepers, a little 
church cocked a squat Gothic spire at heaven. To the 
left was a peep of Broadway, with cable cars ceaselessly 
gliding to and fro; right on top of them, as it seemed, the 
trains of the Elevated Road puffed and rattled in endless 
succession. Just over the iron fretwork peeped a little 
blue shop and a little red shop side by side; elbowing 
them a big greenish theater, and beyond that again 
a great white block of business houses with a broad blue 
band of advertisements across its dead side. Emerging 
above that, another street; beyond that, another square 
block of windows; a clock-tower; then in a shapeless 
brown jumble the city stretches out to the steely band of 
the Hudson and the pale green hills of New Jersey beyond. 
Walk down town towards the business quarter — if one 
part is the business quarter any more than another: the 
impression is everywhere the same. The very buildings cry 
aloud of struggling, almost savage, unregulated strength. 
No street is laid out as part of a system, no building as an 
architectural unit in a street. Nothing is given to beauty; 
184 



From Union Square to Madison Square 

everything centers in hard utiUty. It is the outward ex- 
pression of the freest, fiercest individuaHsm. The very 
houses are alive with the instinct of competition, and strain 
each one to overtop its neighbors. Seeing it, you can well 
understand the admiration of an American for something 
ordered and proportioned — for the Rue de Rivoli or 
Regent Street. Fine buildings, of course, New York has 
in every pure and cross-bred style of architecture under the 
sun. Most are suggestions of the Italian Renaissance, 
as is the simple yet rich and stately Produce Exchange, 
built of terra-cotta and red brick of a warmer, and yet less 
impudent, red than ours. In this lives the spirit of the 
best Florentine models. Fifth Avenue is lined with such 
fine buildings — here rococo, there a fine Gothic cathedral, 
then, again a hint of Byzantine, or a dandy suggestion of 
Mauresque. 

Indeed, architects here appear far more awake to what 
is beautiful than ours. Working on the old models, they 
seldom fail to impart a suggestion of originality. You will 
hardly find an eyesore like the new Admiralty in New 
York. But too many of the best buildings are half wasted 
for want of space and place. The Produce Exchange has 
nearly half its front cut off by a row of steamship offices. 
Many of the most ambitious buildings in narrow Wall 
Street are so high that it would break any man's neck to 
look to the top of them. Each for himself is the motto of 
New York building, and confusion takes the hindmost 
and the foremost, the topmost and the whole jumble. 
No man could do its architecture justice unless he had 
a pair of eyes in the top and the back and both sides of his 
head, with a squint in each of them. 

The city stretches north from Battery Point, between the 
i85 



I'he Wayfarer in New York 

East River and the Hudson, so that it is over thirteen miles 
long by about three wide. The best way to see it as a 
whole, therefore, is from some such point as the Brooklyn 
Bridge, whence I have seen it at night, stretched out in 
front of a rosy sunset that bathed even New York in soft- 
ness. From that point the low red houses sloping up from 
the waterside looked like a carpet for the giants to tread 
upon. These skyscraping monsters stretched in a 
jagged backbone along the central northern line 
of the city — mere white frames for windows, 
most of them appear — square, hard 
outlines, four times as high as 
they are broad, with regular 
rows on rows of case- 
ments as close as 
the squares in 
a chess- 
board. 
G. W. Steevens in 
The Land of the Dollar 



i86 



VII 

FROM MADISON SQUARE THROUGH 
CENTRAL PARK 



"npWAS a summery day in the last of May — 

J- Pleasant in sun or shade; 
And the hours went by, as the poets say, 

Fragrant and fair on their flowery way; 
And a hearse crept slowly through Broadway, 

And the Fountain gaily play'd. 

N. P. Willis 



VII 

FROM MADISON SQUARE THROUGH 
CENTRAL PARK 

The Architecture of New York ^v> ^^i^^ ^;:> 

THIS is the first sensation of life in New York — 
you feel that the Americans have practically added 
a new dimension to space. They move almost as 
much on the perpendicular as on the horizontal plane. 
When they find themselves a little crowded, they simply 
tilt a street on end and call it a skyscraper. This hotel, 
for example (the Waldorf-Astoria), is nothing but a couple 
of populous streets soaring up into the air instead of crawl- 
ing along the ground. When I was here in 1877, I re- 
member looking with wonder at the Tribune building, 
hard by the Post Office, which was then considered a 
marvel of architectural daring. Now it is dwarfed into 
absolute insignificance by a dozen Cyclopean structures 
on every hand. It looks as diminutive as the Adelphi 
Terrace in contrast with the Hotel Cecil. I am credibly 
informed that in some of the huge down-town buildings 
they run "express" elevators, which do not stop before 
the fifteenth, eighteenth, twentieth floor, as the case may 
be. Some such arrangement seems very necessary, for 
the elevator Bumtnelzugs, which stop at every floor, take 
189 



The Wayfarer in New York 

quite an appreciable slice out of the average New York 
day. I wonder that American ingenuity has not provided 
a system of pneumatic passenger-tubes for lightning com- 
munication with these aerial suburbs, these ''mansions in 
the sky." 

The achitecture of New York, according to Mr. Steevens, 
is "the outward expression of the freest, fiercest individu- 
alism. . . . Seeing it, you can well understand the ad- 
miration of an American for something ordered and pro- 
portioned — for the Rue de Rivoli or Regent Street." 
I heard this admiration emphatically expressed the other 
day by one of the foremost and most justly famous of 
American authors; but, unlike Mr. Steevens, I could not 
understand it. ''What !" I said, "you would Haussmann- 
ise New York! You would reduce the glorious variety 
of Fifth Avenue to the deadly uniformity of the Avenue de 
I'Opera, where each block of buildings reproduces its 
neighbour, as though they had all been stamped by one 
gigantic die ! " Such an architectural ideal is inconceivable 
to me. It is all very well for a few short streets, for a square 
or two, for a quadrant Uke that of Regent Street, or a 
crescent or circus like those of Bath or Edinburgh. But to 
apply it throughout a whole quarter of a city, or even 
throughout the endless vistas of a great American street, 
would be simply maddening. Better the most heaven- 
storming or skyscraping audacity of individualism than 
any attempt to transform New York into a Fourierist 
phalanstery or a model prison. I do not doubt that there 
will one day be some legal restriction on Towers of Babel, 
and that the hygienic disadvantages of the microbe-breed- 
ing "well" or air-shaft will be more fully recognised than 
they are at present. A time may come, too, when the ideal 
190 



Madison Square through Central Park 

of an unforced harmony in architectural groupings may 
replace the now dominant instinct of aggressive diversity. 
But whatever developments the future may have in store, 
I must own my gratitude to the "fierce individualism" 
of the present for a new realisation of the possibilities of 
architectural beauty in modern life. At almost every turn 
in New York, one comes across some building that gives 
one a little shock of pleasure. Sometimes, indeed, it is 
the pleasure of recognising an old friend in a new place 
— a patch of Venice or a chunk of Florence transported 
bodily to the New World. The exquisite tower of the 
Madison Square Garden, for instance, is modelled on that 
of the Giralda, at Seville ; while the new University Club, 
on Fifth Avenue, is simply a Florentine fortress-palace of 
somewhat disproportionate height. But along with a good 
deal of sheer reproduction of European models, one finds 
a great deal of ingenious and inventive adaptation, to say 
nothing of a very delicate taste in the treatment of detail. 
New York abounds, it is true, with monuments of more than 
one bygone and detestable period of architectural fashion, 
but they are as distinctly survivals from a dead past as is 
the wooden shanty which occupies one of the best sites on 
Fifth Avenue, in the very shadow of the new Delmonico's. 
I wish tasteless, conventional and machine-made architec- 
ture were as much of a "back-number" in England as it is 
here. A practised observer could confidently date any 
prominent building in New York to within a year or two, 
by its architectural merit; and the greater the merit the 
later the year. 
In short, architecture is here a living art. 

William Archer in America To-day 
Copyright, i8gg, by Charles Scribner^s Sons 
191 



The Wayfarer in New York 

The Tenderloin ^Qy ^^^y '^;:i. -v^ -oy 

n^HERE is a West Side as well as an East Side, 
•*- where pauperized Americans live in brick shanties, 
where negroes and poor whites and Irish-Americans 
gather in forlorn quarters, and where poverty, crime, and 
disease are almost as prevalent as elsewhere in the city. 
Moreover, right through the heart of the Upper City, 
between the two dismal Sides, cuts that Great White Way, 
which has for its high-light the district known as ''The 
Tenderloin" — a feature truly enough American, and not 
the less of a blotch and a patch on the city because illuminated 
by electricity, and made gaudy by the extravagance of the 
foolish. . . . 

The Great White Way is the place where the rapid career 
usually begins, and the East Side is often the place of its 
ending. For the processes of degeneracy may finally 
land the one-time habitud of "The Tenderloin" into the 
pitiless precincts of the Bowery, or the darkness of the Mott 
Street opium-joints. ''The Tenderloin" is always full 
of evil promise. Here is where crime is born and brought 
to maturity. Here is where the police throw out their 
first drag-net for the defaulter, the embezzler, the forger, 
the well-dressed thief. Most of the race-track, the pool- 
room, the bucket-shop people belong here; and confidence 
men, badger-game men, with pickpockets and ordinary 
swindlers, are always in its offing, keeping a weather-eye 
open for prey. The gay ladies sooner or later become 
the stool-pigeons of the swindlers and help them in their 
hawking. Such criminals as these seem more cunning 
than brutal, but perhaps they are more dangerous for that 
very reason. The police have to keep them on the blotter 
192 



Madison Square through Central Park 

all the time. ''The Tenderloin" is perhaps under stricter 
surveillance than the Bowery and its purlieus. 

J. C. Van Dyke in The New New York 

When the Owls First Blinked Election News ^^ 

OROADWAY cable-cars and elevated trains poured 
^^ their hordes into the open spaces on election 
night. There were thousands massed in Herald Square; 
an enormous crowd in Madison Square, confused, up- 
roarious. Here and there, razzle-dazzle duets and trios 
wandered up and down the thoroughfare, celebrating on 
more or less unsteady feet the day's victory for reform. 
The intensity of feeling in any election is usually indicated 
by the amount of intoxication among the voters. There 
was more than the usual number of plain and ornamental 
drunks on the streets that night. The good-natured 
crowd seemed for the hour to have dropped the attitude of 
reserve and suspicion, and to have adopted a carnival readi- 
ness to be gay, or at least more or less excited, with any 
comer. And unless the enthusiasm was distinctly over- 
pitched the police made no attempt to interfere with the 
hilarious privileges of the people. 

The Bowery was crowded with Tammany voters who 
strolled along in an endless stream, gossiping and talking 
over the defeat of the day, between times cursing the intri- 
cate ballot system. 

Grand Street was brilliant from end to end, and every 
young man with a good social bent promenaded the street 
with his best girl or stood in the great crushes around the 
bulletin boards. It was a great night for the little boys 
and the bonfires. Every street was ablaze with flaming 
pyramids of light around which flitted small and ragged, or 
o 193 



The Wayfarer in New York 

sturdy and well-dressed, gnomes, who piled on barrels, 
boxes, and boards, even election booths stolen from both 
parties. The lofty tenements stood out in bold reHef or 
faded into flickering shadows, their fire-escapes crowded 
with silent spectators. 

From the wider streets off Herald Square the yellow light 
of these big fires fell on and mellowed the ornamented 
facade of the building which was the focus of interest, 
the beautiful old-world palace housing the newspaper which 
had its beginnings sixty years ago in a Wall Street cellar, — 
not a basement but a genuine cellar, — with an office equip- 
ment of a broken chair and a board over two flour barrels. 

The unique feature of the night's display of election news 
was the blinking of the owls on the Herald Building's roof. 
The birds, solemn, imperturbably sitting in rows on the roof, 
had an air of wisdom about them far out of the ordinary 
as they sent out the tidings of who had carried the state 
and who had swept the city. The novel idea had captured 
the town and a vast army wanted to see how this ingenious 
application of electricity worked. Suddenly the light 
flashed in the owls' eyes; then it died out. Then it flashed 
again; that was all. "Two blinks: — Republicans run- 
ning ahead in the state." A minute passed; the owls 
blinked twice again. Another minute passed. They 
blinked twice more; that made three pair of blinks. 
What did it mean? Scores had the key to the signals 
pasted in their hats. The key said: ''Any of the signals 
repeated three times at intervals of a minute will indicate 
that the result is certain." And the stereopticon professor 
threw a portrait of New York's next Governor on the screen 
while the crowd hurrahed. The Bulletins brought out 
cheers, but the owls were the favorites. 
194 



Madison Square through Central Park 

And through it all, overhead, below the great bronze 
statue of Minerva, the Wise Woman — without a vote — the 
figures of heroic workmen swung their great bronze ham- 
mers with a calm precision disturbed by no storm of nature 
about, or noise of men below — and above them eternal 
Wisdom sang : — 

*' Year after year I see them come 
To toil and triumph — or martyrdom. 
I see them come and I see them pass, 
To sleep and silence and graveyard grass, 
And the ebb and flow of that restless sea, 
Its storms and its surges, are naught to me. 
And I calmly weave the eternal rhyme 
And beat it out on the bell of Time." 

Condensed from current articles in The New York Herald 
Three Days of Terror, 1863 ^^> ^;> ^^:y -^^^ 

T7VERYTHING looked hot, glaring, and artificial, 
■'--' and everybody looked shabby, jaded, and care- 
worn. An overworked horse dropped dead in the street 
before me, and I was glad to take refuge for a time 
in the Astor Library. 

Returning thence at mid-day I first saw signs of disturb- 
ance. A squad of policemen passed before me into Third 
Avenue, clerks were looking eagerly from the doors, and 
men whispering in knots all up and down the street ; but 
I was too much a stranger to be certain that these appear- 
ances were unusual, though they annoyed me so much 
that I crossed at once to Second Avenue, along which I 
pursued my way peacefully, and once at home thought no 
more of it. We were indulging ourselves in siestas after 
our noonday lunch, when a great roaring suddenly burst 
195 



The Wayfarer in New York 

upon our ears — a howling as of thousands of wild Indians 
let loose at once ; and before we could look out and collect 
our thoughts at all the cry arose from every quarter, "The 
mob! the mob!" ''The Irish have risen to resist the 
draft!" 

In a second my head was out of the window, and I saw 
it with my own eyes. We were on a cross-street between 
First and Second Avenues. First Avenue was crowded 
as far as we could see it with thousands of infuriated crea- 
tures, yelling, screaming and swearing in the most frantic 
manner; while crowds of women, equally ferocious, were 
leaning from every door and window, swinging aprons and 
handkerchiefs, and cheering and urging them onward. 
The rush and roar grew every moment more terrific. Up 
came fresh hordes faster and more furious; bareheaded 
men, with red, swollen faces, brandishing sticks and clubs, 
or carrying heavy poles and beams; and boys, women, 
and children hurrying on and joining with them in this mad 
chase up the avenue like a company of raging fiends. 
. . . The armory on Twenty-second Street was broken 
open, sacked, and fired, and the smoke and flames rolled 
up directly behind us. . . . 

But another day had come, Wednesday, July 15th. 
A long, bright, blazing midsummer day was before us. 
There was little change in the aspect of affairs without. 
The city was not all burned down, we found. The news- 
papers were still alive, and insisting that more troops were 
on hand and the mob checked ; but we saw no signs of it. 
The morning indeed passed more quietly. The rioters 
were resting from the labors of the night; but business 
was not resumed, and swarms of idle men still hung about 
the streets and stores. No cars were running in the 
196 



Madison Square through Central Park 

avenues, no carts in the streets. No milkmen came, and 
no meat-men, and not a soldier or policeman showed his 
head. . . . 

The day, though quieter than the preceding, was far 
more irksome. The brick walls and glaring streets, 
the heat, confusion, and confinement were intolerably 
wearisome. The sun blazed more and more fiercely. 
The stillness was oppressive and ominous. It seemed the 
calm before a storm. Already clouds was gathering in 
the horizon. As night approached we heard drums beating 
and gangs of rioters marched up their favorite avenue. 
The whole population bestirred itself at once. Men, 
women, and children rushed out cheering and clamoring, 
some hurrying on with the crowd, some hanging around the 
corner. Many soon returned, laden with spoil — bedding, 
clothing, and furniture. The crowd increased rapidly 
in the street and around the liquor store. Great excite- 
ment prevailed. There was loud talking, with fierce 
gestures. Some ran thither with fire-arms, some with poles 
and boards. Then someone shouted, ''They are coming ! " 
and a small band of soldiers appeared marching up our 
street. The mob seemed to swell into vast dimensions, 
and densely filled the whole street before them. Hun- 
dreds hurried out on the house-tops, tore up brickbats, and 
hurled them with savage howls at the approaching soldiers. 
Shots were fired from secret ambushes, and soldiers fell 
before they had fired. Then they charged bravely into 
the mob, but their force was wholly inadequate. One 
small howitzer and a company of extemporized militia 
could do little against those raging thousands. A fierce 
conflict raged before our eyes. With breathless interest 
we watched them from door and windows. We feared the 
197 



The Wayfarer in New York 

soldiers would be swallowed up and annihilated. Some 
now appeared in sight with a wounded officer and several 
wounded men, looking from side to side for shelter. Their 
eyes met ours with mute appeal. There was no time to be 
lost; the mob might any moment be upon them. There 
was a moment's consultation, a hasty reference to J., an 
unhesitating response: ''Yes, by all means" ; we beckoned 
them in, and in they came. Doors and windows were at 
once closed, and the house became a hospital, and seemed 
filled with armed men. The wounded men were carried 
into my brother's room ; the Colonel was laid on the bed, 
and the others propped up with pillows. There were a few 
moments of great commotion and confusion. We flew 
for fans, ice-water, and bandages. Some of the soldiers 
went out into the fight again, and some remained with the 
wounded. A surgeon, who had volunteered as a private 
under his old commander, dressed the wounds of the suf- 
ferers. The Colonel was severely wounded in the thigh 
by a slug made of a piece of lead pipe, producing a com- 
pound fracture. The wounds of two others, though less 
dangerous, were severe and painful. . . . Twilight was 
now upon us and night rapidly approaching ; we were open 
to attack at once from the front and the rear, the roof, the 
front basement and the balcony above it; resistance was 
hopeless, could only make the case worse, and must not 
be attempted. Not only so but all signs of the presence 
of soldiers must be removed. Arms, military apparel and 
bloody clothing were concealed. The Colonel was con- 
veyed to a cellar and placed on a mattress. The young 
soldier, next to him most seriously wounded, was removed 
to a rear room on an upper floor, and placed in charge of 
my mother and myself. ... Of course we knew but 
198 



Madison Square through Central Park 

imperfectly at the time of the search, what was going on. 
We knew that men bent on their destruction were seeking 
for them. We heard the clamor without, the cry for "the 
soldiers," the rush into the hall. We heard the movement 
through the parlors and downward to the basement. 
Then came the irruption of the fierce crowd into the lower 
hall. . . . Again, came screams from below, the heavy 
tramp of many men, now moving upward, talking eagerly 
and rapidly. They paused in the hall. We dared not 
move or breathe. Would they come up the stairs? No, 
the door is opened, men pass out, it is closed after them 
and all is silent. . , . 

It was now, we thought, past midnight. We had no hope 
of relief, no thought or expectation but of struggling on 
alone hour after hour of distress and darkness; but as I 
was listening in my window to some unusually threatening 
demonstrations from the mob, I heard the distant clank 
of a horse's hoof on the pavement. Again and again it 
sounded, more and more distinctly; and then a measured 
tread reached my ears, the steady, resolute tramp of a 
trained and disciplined body. No music was ever half 
so beautiful! It might, it must be, our soldiers! Off I 
flew to spread the good news through the household, and 
back again to the window to hear the tramp nearer and 
fuller and stronger, and see a long line of muskets gleam 
out from the darkness, and a stalwart body of men stop 
at our door. *'Halt!" was cried; and I rushed down 
stairs headlong, unlocked the door without waiting for 
orders, and with tears of joy and gratitude which everyone 
can imagine, and nobody can describe, welcomed a band 
of radiant soldiers and poHcemen, and in the midst of them 
all who should appear but my brother, pale and exhausted, 
199 



The Wayfarer in New York 

who had gotten off the house-top in some mysterious way 
and brought this gallant company to our rescue ! 

There was no time for inquiries or felicitations. The 
wounded men were our first care. Our young soldier 
in his delight had hobbled to the stairway, and was borne 
down in triumph by his sympathizing comrades, while 
a larger company brought the Colonel from the cellar. A 
pitiful sight he was, all bleeding and ghastly, shivering with 
cold and suffering great pain. Both soldiers were placed 
carefully in the carriage brought for their conveyance, and 
then we ladies were requested to accompany them im- 
mediately. It was unsafe to remain in the house, soldiers 
could not be spared to protect it, and it was best for us 
to go at once to the Central Police Station. 

Ellen Leonard in Harper's Magazine 

The Little Church Round the Corner ^^ ^:^ 

" "DRING him not here, where our sainted feet 

^-^ Are treading the path to glory; 
Bring him not here, where our Saviour sweet 

Repeats for us his story. 
Go, take him where such things are done 

(For he sat in the seat of the scorner). 
To where they have room, for we have none, — 

To the little church round the corner." 

So spake the holy Man of God, 
Of another man, his brother. 

Whose cold remains, ere they sought the sod, 
Had only asked that a Christian rite 
Might be read above them by one whose light 
Was, "Brethren, love one another"; 
200 



Madison Square through Central Park 

Had only asked that a prayer be read 

Ere his flesh went down to join the dead, 

While his spirit looked with suppliant eyes, 

Searching for God throughout the skies. 

But the priest frowned "No," and his brow was bare 

Of love in the sight of the mourner, 
And they looked for Christ and found him — where? 

In that little church round the corner. 

Ah ! well, God grant when, with aching feet, 

We tread life's last few paces. 
That we may hear some accents sweet, 

And kiss, to the end, fond faces. 
God grant that this tired flesh may rest 

('Mid many a musing mourner). 
While the sermon is preached and the rites are read 
In no church where the heart of love is dead. 
And the pastor's a pious prig at best. 
But in some small nook where God's confessed, — 

Some little church round the corner. 

A. E. Lancaster 

The Path of In-the-Spring ^i^y '*^:b' ^^y ^:> 

"^^TEST of the walk leading from the south to the 
^ ^ Reservoir Castle in the park there is a little brick 
path, steep and uneven and running crookedly down- 
ward like a mere mood of the sober walk itself. The 
path is railed in from the crowding green things on either 
side, but the rail hardly thwarts a magnificent Forsythia 
which tosses its sprays to curve high over the way like the 
curve of wings in flight. It was a habit of ours to seek out 
this path once or twice every Spring, and to stand beneath 

201 



The Wayfarer in New York 

these branches. Some way when we did that we were 
sure that it was Spring, for we seemed to catch its high 
moment; as for another a bell might strike somewhere 
with "One, two, three: Now it is the crest of May. Four, 
five, six: Now this apple-tree is at the very height of its 
bloom. This is the moment of this rose." We called this 
path the path of In-the-Spring. We always went there 
in the mornings, for in Spring we think that it seems to 
be more Spring in the morning than in the afternoon. And 
it was here of an April Nine-o'clock that we saw our first 
pair of grosbeaks of the year. . . . 

"I suppose that that little path really has no ending," 
he said; "you cannot end direction. Yes, the path of 
In-the-Spring must run right away to the end of the 
world." 

We walked on happily, counting the robins, listening to 
a near phoebe call to a far phoebe, watching two wrens 
pull slivers from a post for a nest they knew. Across the 
green, but too far away for certainty, we thought we saw 

a cherry bough in flower. .. . — r\r\ . — ? 

we heard the grosbeak once again from somewhere in- 
visible. The mornings on which we walk in the park seem 
to us almost like youth. 

Zona Gale in The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre 

Columbia at the Outbreak of the Civil War '''::^ 

TN the early spring of 1861 only one building obstructed 
■*• the view from the south portico of Columbia to the 
gray walls of the reservoir on Fifth Avenue — the old 
wooden stage station at the southeast corner of 43d Street. 
If it happened to be raining hard and one had taken the 
Fifth Avenue stage, in order to be in time for chapel, the 
202 



Madison Square through Central Park 

vehicle would come no further than that corner. One had 
to go afoot, as did Professors Anthon and Schmidt, every 
college day of the week. 

The avenue was unpaved from curb to curb and only 
a single file of flagstones served as sidewalk. Twice a day, 
from 8.30 to 9 A.M. or i to 1.30 p.m., as many as forty or 
even fifty students could there be counted going to or from 
the college. The rest of the possible one hundred and 
eighty took the Third or Sixth Avenue cars. Madison 
Avenue extended only to 426. Street, and the long rectangles 
bounded by Fourth and Fifth Avenues, 46th, 47th, 48th, 
and 49th Streets, were deep hollows largely given over to 
goats and squatters. Beyond 45th Street were the huge 
pens of the Bull's Head stock market. It was but a step 
from the classic halls to the haunts of our Hibernian fellow- 
citizens who dwelt under the aegis of Tammany. 

The big cathedral was then about one course high above 
the cornerstone. The builders were many, and apparently 
all of one nationality. A parish school flourished just back 
of us on 50th Street, and its rollicking brood rejoiced in 
overrunning the college grounds out of college hours and 
turning the goats in there to graze, to the wrath and disgust 
of Janitor Weeks. Our playground was supposed to be 
the vacant lot inclosed and leveled off west of Fifth 
Avenue, but we never played there. Baseball was young, 
and popular, but Columbia had no nine. A number of 
us grammar school youngsters had earlier started a club, 
and sometimes played in the open field south of 49th Street, 
but even the presence of **Prex " and certain grave and 
reverend seniors as spectators did not avert piracy. A ball 
batted beyond the infield was frequently nabbed by a swift- 
vanishing squadron from the neighboring shanties, and 
203 



The Wayfarer in New York 

no search warrant could retrieve it. The poor had we ever 
with us in those days — the poHce never. 

The Harlem and the New Haven railways ran flush with 
the street along Fourth Avenue. There was no tunnel 
south of Hamilton Square until one came to 426. Street. 
Several students rode in from Harlem, New Rochelle, or 
Morrisania each morning, jumping off as the train slowed 
up at 45th Street, and presently, day after day, the trains 
came laden with volunteers — long trains that would come 
to a stop and block the passage of 49th Street, to the end 
that revered professors, like Davies and Peck, seeking to 
reach a Third Avenue car to take them home to loth Street, 
had the alternative of crawling under or walking several 
blocks around. When this blockade occurred after college, 
undergraduate indignation was instant and unanimous. 
When it happened, as once it did, just before chapel, it 
aroused only the liveliest enthusiasm and delight. 

Eastward across Fourth Avenue lay what had been the 
Potter's Field, a malodorous neighbor much in evidence 
and disrepute, during the long process of disinterment in 
'58 and '59. By the summer of '63 all those open tracts 
had become one vast tented field hospital, crowded with 
sick and wounded from the army. But long before that 
my name had been dropped from the rolls of the old col- 
lege and transferred to those of Uncle Sam. 

One brilliant, glorious day we had the commencement of 
June, '61, held at the Academy of Music in 14th Street, 
when, before a crowded house, the graduating class re- 
ceived its diplomas, man after man applauded by rejoiceful 
friends as he came down from the stage ; but the audience 
rose and went wild with enthusiasm when, toward the very 
last, were called the names of a certain two or three who 
204 



Madison Square through Central Park 

had marched away at the call of President Lincoln of the 
Union, and now were home on brief furlough to receive 
their sheepskins, and a metaphorical pat on the back, at 
the hands of President King of Columbia. As the first 
one turned to face the throng, the blush mounting high 
to his forehead, the silken gown fluttering back and re- 
vealing the soldier uniform beneath, the shout that went 
up shook the great auditorium from pit to dome, and broke 
forth anew as the President closed his thrilling war speech 
to his graduates, some of whom left for the front that very- 
night, followed within a day or two by others who had just 
passed the entrance examination. Columbia was a martial 
college in those days. The President had been a soldier 
in the War of 1812 and, though his years forbade his taking 
the field in '61, every able-bodied son and grandson went 
on to represent him. Our three mathematical professors, 
Davies, Hackley and Peck, were graduates of West Point, 
our great Dr. Lieber was himself an adviser of the adminis- 
tration, and a tower of strength on all questions of interna- 
tional law. 

Charles King in the Columbia University Quarterly 

New York Clubs ^^^^ -"^^ ^=^ -"^^ -^^ 

'T^HE stranger in town ought to find some bunk besides 
-■- a hotel. If you happen to be a Chinaman, try the 
Reform Club in Doyer Street. If you come from Nip- 
pon, the Hinade or Rising Sun Club, founded in 1896, will 
welcome you, especially if you subscribe to the little mag- 
azine it publishes; and at Columbia University there is 
a Japanese students' club. If you are a Syrian, Hungarian, 
Bohemian — anything — just wander around the East 
Side in your native costume. If you are a Hindu, try 
205 



The Wayfarer in New York 

a theosophical meeting-room. If you are a Democrat, ask 
a policeman. If you are an anarchist, don't. 

There are political clubs of all persuasions. The far- 
famed Tammany Hall in East Fourteenth Street is only 
a club of ambitious nature, organized after the manner of 
Indian tribes with sachems and sich. The Democrats 
have two other clubs, thanks to a split in the ranks. The 
Manhattan Club, formerly in A. T. Stewart's old mansion, 
has now gone to Twenty-sixth Street, where, in the summer, 
one may sit on the balcony and mingle his black coffee and 
brown cigar, the aromatic foliage of Madison Square, and 
his Jeffersonian principles in one peaceful reverie. The 
other club, the Democratic, at Fiftieth Street and Fifth 
Avenue, was founded by the ex-proprietor of New York, 
Mr. Croker. It is the home of the Tammany wing of the 
party. Brooklyn has also a finely housed Jefferson Club. 
Besides, every election district has its political clubs, named 
after district leaders, who pay for the compliment with an 
occasional chowder party on an excursion boat. 

The RepubHcans have a Union League Club in Brooklyn, 
and one better known in New York. The latter was founded 
in 1673 to aid the Union at a time when New York senti- 
ment was not unanimous for the continuation of the war. 
. . . The Union League knows only peace nowadays, 
but the comfort of its basking windows encourages and fills 
a clubhouse costing $400,000. It includes an art-gallery, 
and its loan exhibitions are events. There is another 
Republican Club on West Fortieth Street, of large member- 
ship. The Reform Club, at No. 2 East Thirty-fifth Street, 
is devoted to amelioration in general and the City Club to 
the never-ending need of municipal antiseptics. 

The creeds as well as the factions have their clubs, 
206 



Madison Square through Central Park 

most prominent being the sumptuous Catholic Club, facing 
Central Park on Fifty-ninth Street, the Church Club, of 
Episcopalian persuasion, at No. 578 Fifth Avenue, the 
Hebrew Associations, the Harmonie at 45 East Twenty- 
third Street, the Progress at Central Park West and Eighty- 
eighth Street, and the Freundschaft in Seventy-second 
Street. But, pious as are these monasteries, it takes some- 
thing more than faith to get into them. Faith without 
works is like a watch in the same condition. 

Among the colleges, the finest clubhouses are those of 
Old Eli and Fair Harvard. Harvard's is the elder, and it 
is a charming example of Colonial grace and dignity and 
comfort, though it has recently suffered considerable 
enlargement. Yale faces Harvard defiantly across Forty- 
fourth Street, as on many a gridiron. The Yale house is 
of the modern school, soaring to eleven stories; but its 
grillroom is quaint and old-fashioned, with a big fireplace 
and all the comforts of an old tavern. Columbia Uni- 
versity has a house in Madison Square. Princeton flies 
her orange and black flag in Thirty-fourth Street, Cornell 
is in Forty-fifth Street, and Pennsylvania in Forty-fourth 
Street. 

At these clubs newly graduated men, still living on their 
fathers, are admitted at a very low rate. As they get older 
and incur families the dues increase with their other troubles. 
Chief of all college clubs is the super-palatial University, 
which requires of its candidates that they should have at 
least rubbed up against the walls of one of the more 
important colleges. 

The Hardware Club, the Merchants', the Lawyers', 
the Downtown Association and the Aldine (formerly com- 
posed of Barabbas publishers, now of business men) are 
207 



The Wayfarer in New York 

mainly luncheon resorts where one can combine the mid- 
day meal with business conference and indigestion. 

The Bar Association and the Academy of Medicine, 
however, are most palatially housed, and the Engineers 
of various sorts have homes where one gossips daily of 
horse-powers, watts, ohms and tangential stress. The 
men whose trade is war on land or sea have their Army 
and Navy Club. The Authors' Club occupies rooms 
donated by Andrew Carnegie, who has recently ofifered to 
build a lairdly asylum for all the other mechanicians. 

Of athletic clubs the principal are the Crescent, of 
Brooklyn, with its boathouse on the Bay, and the New York 
Athletic, chief of American athletic clubs. Its annual 
Ladies' Day receptions are thronged, the women guests 
being entertained not only by stunts in the gymnasium, 
but by aquatic contests and water polo in the swimming 
pool. The club also owns Travers Island, with a club- 
house and grounds where outdoor games are held. Other 
athletic associations are the Fencers', the Riders', a Coach- 
ing Club, a Japanese jiu-jitsu club and numerous German 
Turnvereinen. 

There are two professional clubs conducted on the lucus 
a non lucendo principle — the Press Club, to which almost 
no pressman belongs, and the Players' Club, of which one 
of its literary lights observed, **The good thing about 

the Players' Club is that you never meet any of those 

actors there." While this is hyperbole, the club is 

largely recruited from authors and artists, though it was 
founded and endowed by Edwin Booth as a home for his 
fellows of the stage, and though it is a rule that no dramatic 
critic may break in and corrupt. The Players' has one 
of the most comfortable residences in the city, and its 
208 



Madison Square through Central Park 

atmosphere is full of a cheerful dignity. It is the lair of 
one of the town's pet wits, Beau Herford, whose epigrams 
radiate thence throughout the avenues. 

The Salmagundi is composed of the most important 
artists of the country; after the manner of their Parisian 
schooling, they amuse themselves artistically and with 
elaborateness. They give costume dinners, Christmas 
parties and auctions, where good fellowship is indulged in 
in decorative style. 

The Strollers had its origin in a Columbia College 
dramatic club; it has since broadened out into a group of 
young society men, with a mixture of artists and illustrators. 
It occupies the house lately held by the New York Yacht 
Club. Here it has a small theater, where ** Roisters" 
or ** Strolls" are given frequently during the winter. It 
devotes also a week every year to the production of an 
operetta original with the members and played by the 
members, save for an auxiliary of pretty girls. The list 
of patronesses for these entertainments exhausts the Social 
Register. 

The Lotos Club is famous throughout the land for its 
distinguished guests and their treatment. An American 
or a foreign visitor cannot claim to have had the final 
accolade of fame till the Lotos has given him a banquet. 
But at this banquet he will be treated not with reverence, 
but as a shining mark for the target practice of the best 
wits. The art exhibitions at the Lotos are also notable. 

The Lambs is composed almost altogether of the more 
successful actors and playwrights. Here the most formi- 
dable tragedians and the most despotic comedians lay off 
the motley and make-up and become **just lambs." The 
club metaphor is carried to the last degree; the chief officer 
j> 209 



The Wayfarer in New York 

is the "Collie," the entertainments are "gambols," pre- 
sided over by "the Boy"; once a year the club has 
a water party, called "the Washing." The un- 
equaled spirit of comradeship and co- 
operation and the great prosperity 
of the club are stout contradic- 
tions of prevailing supersti- 
tions concerning actors. 
Rupert Hughes in 
The Real New 
York 
Copyright, 
1904 



210 



vni 

UPPER MANHATTAN AND HARLEM 



FIFTH AVENUE AT NIGHT 

LIKE moonstones drooping from a fair queen*s ears 
The pale lights seem — 
White gems that shimmer when the dark appears 
And the old dream — 

The ancient dream that comes with every night 

Through the long street — 
The quiet and the shadows, and the light 
Tread of far feet. 

Charles Hanson Towne 
Copyright, igo8, by the B. W. Dodge Co. 



VIII 

UPPER MANHATTAN AND HARLEM 

Riverside Drive and Morningside Heights <::> '^^ 

" /^ENTRAL PARK is as different from Hyde Park or 

^"-^ Regent's Park or the Bois de Boulogne as day from 
night. They are flat and barren compared with the 
ups and downs and the countless graceful shapes of this 
place. Fortunately, it's too dark for you to see the 
statues. Some of them are the worst on the earth." . . . 

The automobile swept out of the Park at Seventy-second 
Street and crossed to Riverside Drive. Here the mighty 
Hudson burst upon their view, and the long avenue, now 
almost deserted, was filled with silence and epic poetry. 
The houses along one side were all of ambitious archi- 
tecture, and, in the dark, they made a rich white wall three 
miles long. The other side was all trees and terraces 
down to the river banks. Across the wide floor of the 
Hudson, glistening with eddies and streaked currents, 
the Palisades reared their dim heights and led the eye into 
a distance of majestic beauty. 

The marble tower of the Soldiers and Sailors' Monument 
rose in ghostly white, and seemed a smaller prelude to 
Grant's Monument. This big tomb lost much of its 
rigidity in the envelopment of night, and its succession of 
square Doric base, circle of Ionic columns and pyramidal 
dome lifted the soul to an exaltation. 

''Just opposite this tomb," said Miss De Peyster, 
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The Wayfarer in New York 

tenderly, "is the little grave of an 'amiable child,' a poor 
little boy five years old, who died in 1797. The grave has 
not been disturbed, and it seems less lonely now lying so 
close to General Grant and his wife." 

After a long and silent inbreathing of the loftiness of 
the scene. Miss Collis murmured: 

*'It is more beautiful even than the Golden Gate." 

This is a San Franciscan's last tribute. 

Now De Peyster ordered the chauffeur to turn into 
Morningside Heights. From the parapet they looked no 
longer on the calm of the Hudson, but on the checkerboard 
of city squares outlined in chains of light. Even the ser- 
pentine trestle of the Elevated road had a grace in this 
half-day, and the massive arch of the unfinished Cathedral 
of St. John the Divine rose in a solemn, gray rainbow of 
stone. . . . Then the automobile went spinning down the 
steep incline of One Hundred and Tenth Street, whence it 
dived again into the deep luxuries of Central Park, and 
sped through its miles of woodland into that long aisle of 
palaces and temples, Fifth Avenue, where the Cathedral 
held up the high beauty of its twin frosty spires to the 
clear, dark sky, bejeweled with constellations and royal 
planet-gems. 

Rupert Hughes in The Real New York 
Copyright, IQ04 

The Founding of Harlem -«;> ^::y -oy <:> 

"IT THEN Montagne arrived in New Amsterdam twenty- 
* * seven years had elapsed since Hudson's successful 
voyage, and twenty years since Governor Peter Minuit 
had bought the island of Manhattan for a sum of money 
equal to about twenty-four dollars. 
214 



Upper Manhattan and Harlem 

The adventurous Montagne was accompanied by his 
wife and son, Johannes, junior. On the voyage was born 
a daughter, who was named Marie, after her grandmother 
De Forest. The little family landed at the Battery, — 
called **Capsee" by the first Dutch settlers, — and spent 
a short time in the village, where Montagne exchanged 
news, gathered information as to the outlying districts, 
furnished himself with a dugout, and demonstrated his 
daring temper by forthwith paddling up the East River far 
beyond the limits of the colony, past Blackwell's Island, 
and landed with his family and farm hands at the turn in 
the shore which afterward received the name of Montagne's 
Point. Thereafter he ascended the creek which then 
formed a tributary of the Harlem, subsequently known as 
Montagne's Creek, which wound its course from a point 
approximating the intersection of i32d Street and Eighth 
Avenue. An old Indian trail followed the course taken 
by St. Nicholas Avenue to-day. At its intersection with 
Seventh Avenue, Dr. Montagne started a bark cabin to 
shelter his family for the winter, and, simultaneously, 
Henry De Forest, Dr. Montagne's brother-in-law, also took 
up his residence on Montagne's Point. 

Governor Kieft was at this time ruler of New Amsterdam. 
From him Dr. Montagne obtained a grant of the land on 
which he had settled, and expressed a sense of gratitude 
for the contrasting peace of his new home in calling it 
"Quiet Dale." He was yet to find, as did his neighbors, 
that this retreat was not so peaceful as it first seemed. 
The Red Man lurked too near at hand. 

The land which Montagne occupied, and to which he 
gave the sentimental name, soon became known as Mon- 
tagne's Flat. The tract, divided by the present line of 

215 



The Wayfarer in New York 

St. Nicholas Avenue, ran from 109th Street to 124th Street, 
and contained about 200 acres. 

Shortly after these settlements, former director Van 
Twiller^ became interested in the Harlem district, and 
settled on Ward's Island. His friend, Jacobus Van 
Curler, preempted the fiat opposite Ward's Island known 
as the Otterspoor, a name signifying ''otter tracks." This 
was afterwards sold to Coenraet Van Keulen, a New York 
merchant, and hence the name Van Keulen's Hook, which 
clung to this part of the district for a hundred years after 
Harlem's founding. 

In this triangle, whose southern line was i02d Street, 
and whose northernmost point touched the Harlem River 
at about 125th Street, lay these three Harlem settlements 
while the first winter passed. 

With the ushering-in of spring Van Curler finished his 
primitive dwelling and out-buildings on the northern bank 
of Montagne's Creek, and secured a stock of all things 
necessary for a well-regulated plantation of the day, — 
domestic animals, farming tools, and a canoe for passing 
to and from New York. At that time, and for a con- 
siderable time thereafter, there was no thought of reaching 
New York except by water. 

Henry De Forest died in July of the next year, and Dr. 
Montagne took charge of the widow's plantation. He also 
saw to the proper harvesting of her crops, and boarded 
with Van Curler while finishing the house and barn which 
his brother-in-law had started in the rough. 

From an account of the bill of fare at Van Curler's, still 
surviving, it appears that the guests were fed on savory 

1 Governor Kieft's predecessor. 
216 



upper Manhattan and Harlem 

venison; deer being so plentiful on the Island as to stray 
within gunshot of the farmhouse. Besides game, they 
had fish and salted eels. Pea soup was included in the 
menu, together with wheat and rye bread, eggs and poultry. 
The settlers also adopted the Indian dish called sapaan, 
made of Indian corn. 

Dr. Montagne continued to look after the estate of his 
sister-in-law until the year following, when a former mem- 
ber of Van Twiiler's council, Andries Hudde, won the hand, 
heart and lands of the young widow De Forest. Particu- 
larly noteworthy is this event, leading up as it did to the 
first groundbrief, or land patent, which was issued relative 
to Harlem lands, *' granting, transporting, ceding, giving 
over, and conveying, to Andries Hudde, his heirs and suc- 
cessors, now and forever," a site owned less than a genera- 
tion later by the Town of New Harlem. 

Carl Horton Pierce in New Harlem 

Manhattan ^^:> ^^:> ^^:> ^^^ ^^:> ^^ 

OHE that sits by the sea, new-crowned with a five-fold 

"^ tiara; 

She of the great twin harbors, our lady of rivers and 

islands; 
Tower-topped Manhattan, 
With feet reeded round with the masts of the five great 

oceans 
Flowering the flags of all nations, flaunting and furling, — 
City of ironways, city of ferries, 
Sea-Queen and Earth-Queen ! 

Look, how the line of her roofs coming down from the north 
Breaks into surf -leap of granite-Jagged sierras — 
217 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Upheaval volcanic, lined sharp on the violet sky 
Where the red moon, lop-sided, past the full, 
Over their ridge swims in the tide of space, 
And the harbor waves laugh softly, silently. 

Look, how the overhead train at the Morningside curve 
Loops like a sea-born dragon its sinuous flight. 
Loops in the night in and out, high up in the air. 
Like a serpent of stars with the coil and undulant reach 
of waves. 

From under the Bridge at noon 

See from the yonder shore how the great curves rise and 

converge. 
Like the beams of the universe, like the masonry of the sky. 
Like the arches set for the corners of the world. 
The foundation-stone of the orbic spheres and spaces. 

Is she not fair and terrible, O Mother — 
City of Titan thews, deep-breasted, colossal limbed, 
Splendid with the spoil of nations, myriad-mooded Man- 
hattan ? 
Behold, we are hers — she has claimed us ; and who has 
power to withstand her? 

Richard Hovey in Along the Trail 
Copyright, i8q8. By permission of Duffleld ^ Co. 

Columbia University on Morningside ^^::i>' ^^ 

T REMEMBER with a sort of definite vagueness, as 
-^ though it had come to me in some former life, the impres- 
sion which I received of Columbia's new home on Morn- 
ingside, on the second day of May, 1896. It was then that 
the formal dedication occurred in the presence of a dis- 
218 



Upper Manhattan and Harlem 

tinguished gathering. Oddly enough, although the coming 
change of site had been known for several years, I had never 
visited the place before. Indeed, I had never until that 
day known anything by personal observation of the upper 
portion of Manhattan Island — a fact which is rather 
characteristic of the New Yorker, a being who lives in his 
own particular angulus terrarum and seldom forsakes those 
beaten paths of urban life which he has chosen for himself. 

It was a beautiful day. An enormous crowd was 
gathered. There were music and the fluttering of flags and 
a general air of exhilaration, as befitted an occasion which 
meant so much to our university. But I must confess 
that, personally, my feeling was one of some depression. 
Only those bred up in the old college, to whom every brick 
of its unpretentious halls and every inch of its diminutive 
campus were dear, can understand this feeling. The old 
Columbia was small in its physical appearance, but it was 
rich in memories and traditions. To think of leaving it 
was like the thought of leaving a home about which there 
had clustered a thousand intimate associations. Indeed, 
the homeUness — using the word in its English sense — 
the friendhness, and even the smallness of the old Columbia 
constituted its peculiar charm. They had given to its 
sons a sense of solidarity, of unity, and therefore of affec- 
tion, all of which were priceless. 

Hence it followed that the vision of a new environment 
was at the time neither attractive nor stimulating. There 
was what appeared to be, by comparison, a vast amount of 
space ; room, it seemed, for indefinite expansion ; but that 
was all. A big, white tent, some unfamiHar brick buildings, 
several excavations and a general rawness, were about all 
that the eye could see on that afternoon in May when Mr. 
219 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Hewitt pronounced his fine oration and when President 
Eliot, on behalf of the sister universities, offered congratula- 
tions because Columbia was to have "a setting com- 
mensurate with the work of its intellectual and spiritual 
influence." But a good many Columbia men must have 
experienced, as I did then, only a very half-hearted en- 
thusiasm; and when, in the following year, the teaching 
staff and the students were actually transferred to Morning- 
side, the feehng which prevailed was more a feeling of 
regret than one of pleasure. To be sure, anyone could 
understand how, in the end, the nascent university was 
destined to make its way to a position of commanding 
influence; but it seemed none the less as though all this 
were for a distant future, and that during many years to 
come we should be inhabiting a sort of academic mining- 
camp, with all its crudity and discomforts, and with the 
sense of having left far better things behind. 

To-day it is with some chagrin that I recall these casual 
impressions, and remember how little faith I had in what 
could be achieved in a single decade by farseeing intelli- 
gence, by constructive imagination, and by efficient hands. 
And therefore what I am writing here is somewhat in the 
nature of a penitential confession. Ten years and more 
have elapsed since then; but what has been achieved 
would, I think, in any other country than our own, be re- 
garded as a miracle had it been performed even within a 
century. The stately structures which crown the heights 
of Morningside speak every year with more and more im- 
pressiveness of the essentially Hellenic union of external 
grace and beauty with inward power and perfection. 

Sometimes, in the early summer, just at dusk, I love 
to stand before the Library, as the soft light is beginning to 
220 



Upper Manhattan and Harlem 

flush the stately columns of its facade, and there enjoy the 
pure and softened influence of the scene — the spacious 
court with its plashing fountains, the domes and terraces, 
the greenery of the foliage and turf. And then, although 
it is but ten short years since Columbia possessed herself 
of this new home and these surroundings, one feels some- 
thing of that pride and almost personal affection which 
crept into the mind of Matthew Arnold, when he wrote 
of Oxford as ''steeped in sentiment, and spreading her 
gardens to the moonlight." And we may share, with no 
less sincerity than Arnold's, the belief that our splendid 
university, which touches not merely the intellect but the 
imagination of her sons, "keeps ever calling us nearer to 
the true goal, to the ideal, to perfection — to beauty in a 
word, which is only truth seen from another side." 

Harry Thurston Peck 

General George Clinton to Dr. Peter Tappen ^^ 

King's Bridge 21st. Sept. 1776. 
T HAVE been so hurried & Fatigued out of the ordinary 
■*■ way of my Duty by the removal of our Army from New 
York & great Part of the public stores to this Place 
that it has almost worn me out tho' as to Health I am 
well as usual: but how my Constitution has been able 
to stand lying out several Nights in the Open Air & ex- 
posed to Rain is almost a Miracle to me — Whom at Home 
the least Wet indeed some Times the Change of Weather 
almost laid me up. 

The Evacuation of the City I suppose has much alarmed 

the Country. It was judged untenable in Council of Gen. 

Officers considering the Enemy possessed of Long Island 

&c., and was therefore advised to be evacuated. The 

221 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Artillery (at least all worth moving) & almost all the public 
stores were removed out of it so that when the Enemy 
landed & attacked our Lines near the City we had but 
few Men there (those indeed did not behave well) our Loss 
however by our Retreat from there either in Men or Stores 
is very inconsiderable. I would not be understood that 
it is my Opinion to evacuate the City neither do I mean 
now to condemn the Measure it is done intended for the 
best I am certain. 

The same Day the Enemy possessed themselves of the 
City, to wit, last Sunday they landed the Main Body of 
their Army & encamped on York Island across about the 
Eight Mile Stone & between that & the four Mile Stone. 
Our Army at least one Division of it lay at Col. Morris's 
& so southward to near the Hollow Way which runs across 
from Harlem Flat to the North River at Matje Davit's 
Fly. About halfway between which two places our Lines 
run across the River which indeed at that Time were only 
began but are now in a very defensible state. On Monday 
Morning the Enemy attacked our Advanced Party Com- 
manded by Col. Knowlton (a brave Officer who was killed 
in the Action) near the Point of Matje Davit's Fly the Fire 
was very brisk on both sides our People however soon 
drove them back into a Clear Field about 200 Paces South 
East (west) of that where they lodged themselves behind 
a Fence covered with Bushes our People pursued them but 
being oblidged to stand exposed in the open Field or take 
a Fence at a Considerable Distance they preferred the 
Latter it was indeed adviseable for we soon brought a 
Couple of Field Pieces to bear upon them which fairly put 
them to flight with two discharges only the Second Time 
our People pursued them closely to the top of a Hill about 
222 



Upper Manhattan and Harlem 

400 paces distant where Ihey received a very Considerable 
Reinforcement & made their Second Stand. Our People 
also had received a Considerable Reinforcement, and at 
this Place a very brisk Action commenced which con- 
tinued for near two Hours in which Time we drove the 
Enemy into a Neighboring orchard from that across a 
Hollow & up another Hill not far Distant from their own 
Encampment, here we found the Ground rather Dis- 
advantageous & a Retreat insecure we therefore thot 
proper not to pursue them any farther & retired to our 
first Ground leaving the Enemy on the last Ground we 
drove them to — that Night I commanded the Right Wing 
of our Advanced Party or Picket on the Ground the Action 
first began of which Col. Pawling & Col. Nicoll's Regi- 
ment were part and next Day I sent a Party to bury our 
Dead. They found but 17. The Enemy removed their 
in the Night we found above 60 Places where dead Men has 
lay from Pudles of Blood & other appearances & at other 
Places fragments of Bandages & Lint. From the best 
Account our Loss killed & wounded is not much less than 
seventy, seventeen of which only dead (this account of our 
Loss exceeds what I mentioned in a Letter I wrote Home 
indeed at that Time I only had an account of the Dead 
— the Wounded were removed — 12 o'clock M. Sunday 
two Deserters from on Board the Bruno Man of War 
lying at Morrisania say the Enemy had 300 killed on 
Monday last,) the Rest most likely do well & theirs is 
somewhat about 300 — upwards it is generally believed — 
Tho I was in the latter Part indeed almost the whole of the 
Action I did not think so many Men were engaged. It 
is without Doubt however they had out on the Occasion 
between 4 and 5000 of their choicest Troope & expected 
223 



The Wayfarer in New York 

to have drove us off the Island. They are greatly mortified 
at their Disappointment & have ever since been exceed- 
ingly modest & quiet not having even patroling Parties 
beyond their Lines — I lay within a Mile of them the Night 
after the battle & never heard Men work harder I believe 
they thought we intended to pursue our x^dvantage & 
Attack them next Morning. 

If I only had a Pair of Pistols I could I think have shot 
a Rascal or two I am sure I would at least have shot a 
puppy of an Officer I found slinking off in the heat of the 
Action. 

(N. Y. City during the American Revolution, published by 
the N. Y. Mercantile Library Association) 

The Great Game at the Polo Grounds ^> ^^^^ 

T^OR nearly every one of the twenty thousand or so per- 
-■- sons inside the Polo Grounds there is one outside. 
There are thousands of them on Coogan's Bluff. The 
viaduct is black with them; the third rail cannot keep 
them off the elevated. Four or five adventurous spirits 
have climbed to the roof of the grand stand in their in- 
tense desire to see the game and are balancing, straddling 
and clinging to their airy perch as best they can. Others 
on the narrow edges of the signboards near the clubhouses 
have clung and kicked their heels for two uncomfortable 
hours. Hundreds have scaled the fence between the Polo 
Grounds and Manhattan Field and at one rush several 
lengths of fence went down entirely. 

It is a high holiday or carnival spirit that seems to actuate 
the crowd, or was until the Chicago players begin appear- 
ing on the field. Then the recollection of former stormy 
scenes creates a feeling that is less frolicsome than bitter. 
224 



upper Manhattan and Harlem 

The greatest applause of all greets McGraw when he walks 
across the moor, and a great amount of expression of the 
other sort was in store for Captain Chance. He walks 
through it all calmly, with head erect. 

They are grizzlies, these Cubs — ursine colossi who 
tower high and frowningly refuse to reckon on anything 
but victory. It is true that the New Yorks did not hit hard 
enough to foster their run-getting game to any extent and 
that Mathewson pitched good baseball in every inning but 
one. His one lapse, however, was fatal. Then and then 
only did the Chicagos find the secret of Mathewson's 
delivery, but they make that one rally the turning-point 
of the game. Without it they would have become merely 
also rans; with it they are champions. 

At three comes a long, delirious yell, a hush, and the game 
is on. There certainly is an outpouring of mirth when 
Chance after hitting safely is caught off at first by a light- 
ning throw from Mathewson. You would have thought 
it the precise play that 30,000 persons had come to see. 
That it should be the great Chance is almost more joy 
than the crowd can stand. Chance is not well pleased. 
He calls Heaven to witness that he is safe. He pleads with 
the umpire. He throws his cap upon the dust and stamps 
on it. Various Cubs assist with futile oratory. . . . 

But joy is hushed in the third inning. When it's over 
the Cubs have four runs. As for that high-yelling crowd, 
it is as quiet as the little throng that hangs around the door 
of a country church of a Sunday morning waiting for the 
parson to pass in. 

There are diversions after that. One can always roast 
the visitor, scold the umpire, or plead with one's own to 
come in with a run. But the mischief was done in that 
Q 225 



The Wayfarer in New York 

third inning and gloom grows deeper. People begin to 
thirst for a disputed decision to fight over. There being 
none, some of them fight anyhow. . . . 

The Cubs, now champions, gallop joyously from the field. 

And meantime all over the city other thousands had been 
following the game by means of tickers, telephones and 
bulletins. Broadway talked of nothing else. In all the 
cafds, hotel lobbies, and restaurants people kept track of 
the score. Waiters whispered the latest returns; they 
were given out mixed with orange bitters and the car- 
bonic; barbers poured them out between strokes of the 
razor. Even the manicure girls could have told the score 
long before the crowds streamed down from Coogan's 
Blufif. 

By permission of The Sun, New York 

The Old Jumel Mansion ^ <::y 'Qy -^^i^ <>y 

ATISITORS to High Bridge — the pretty little village 
^ which stands at the northern limit of Manhattan 
Island — cannot have failed to observe the stately, some- 
what antiquated mansion standing in the midst of 
a pretty park of some fifty acres, and overlooking city 
and river and the varied Westchester plains. It is the 
chief in point of interest as it is the sole survivor of the 
many historic houses that once graced the island, but is 
so environed with city encroachments and improvements 
that its destruction seems likely to be but a question of 
time. Even now the shrill whistle of the metropolitan 
locomotives is heard beneath its eaves. Tenth Avenue 
passes but a block away, and eager speculators have staked 

1 Written about 1880. The old mansion is now owned by the 
Daughters of the Revolution and maintained as a Museum. 
226 



Upper Manhattan and Harlem 

out city lots at its very gates, so hardly is it pressed by the 
great city in its eager outreaching for new territory. 

Few persons who pass the place know, perhaps, the many 
points of historic and romantic interest that it has: how 
it occupies historic ground, being built on the far-famed 
Harlem Heights, within a mile of the site of old Fort 
Washington; that it was built for the dower of a lady of 
such beauty and grace that she was able to win the heart 
of the Father of his Country himself; that within its walls 
Washington established his headquarters while the mastery 
of the island was in dispute with the British, and that 
thither Washington came again in 1790 with all his Cabinet, 
on his return from a visit to the battlefield of Fort Wash- 
ington; or that afterward, a once famous Vice-President 
of the United States was married in its parlors. . . . 

The old oak bedstead on which Washington slept is 
still preserved with other treasured relics in the attic of the 
house. 

Charles Burr Todd in In Olde New York 

The Grafton Historical Series 
The Grafton Press, New York, Publishers 

The Clermont on the Hudson ^^:> ^v> ^Q> 
"l 1 /"HEN Fulton took up the problem of steam navigation 
* • he was living in France, where our American minister 
at the time was Robert R. Livingston. The two men met 
and became mutually interested in planning a steamboat. 
A vessel was built and launched on the Seine; but it was 
too frail for the weight of the engine, which broke through 
the bottom one stormy night and sank in the river. How- 
ever, Fulton and his partner were not discouraged, and 
the latter agreed to provide funds for a larger boat to be 
227 



The Wayfarer in New York 

tried on the Hudson. This was constructed, after plans 
furnished by Fulton, at a shipyard on the East River, and 
was about one hundred and thirty feet long, with un- 
covered paddle-wheels at the side. She was named the 
Clermont after Livingston's country seat on the banks of 
the Hudson at Tivoli. 

The boat left New York for Albany on August 17, 1807; 
and a writer of that time in speaking of its departure says: 
"Nothing could exceed the surprise and admiration of 
all who witnessed the experiment. Before the Clermont 
had made the progress of a quarter of a mile, the greatest 
unbeliever must have been converted. The man, who, 
while he looked on the expensive machine, thanked his 
stars that he had more wisdom than to waste his money 
on such idle schemes, changed the expression of his 
features as the boat moved from the wharf and gained her 
speed. The jeers of the ignorant, who had neither sense 
nor feeling enough to suppress their contemptuous ridicule 
and rude jokes, were silenced by a vulgar astonishment 
which deprived them of the power of utterance, till the 
triumph of genius extorted from the incredulous multitude 
which crowded the shores, shouts of congratulation and 
applause." . . . 

One of the Hudson Valley farmers, after observing 
the strange apparition, hurried home and as- 
sured his wife that he "had seen the devil 
going up the river in a sawmill." 
Clifton Johnson in 
The Picturesque Hudson 



228 



IX 

THE BRONX AND BEYOND 



POE'S COTTAGE 

HERE stands the little antiquated house, 
A few old-fashioned flowers at the door; 
The dead Past leaves it, quiet as a mouse, 
Though just beyond a giant city roar. 

Walter Malone 



IX 

THE BRONX AND BEYOND 

Where the People of New York Live ^Q> '^^ 

1 T mERE do the people of New York live? Where, 
^ ^ you will ask, but in New York? Quite wrong. 
New York, squeezed in between the Hudson and the East 
River, is far too narrow for a tithe of those who do busi- 
ness there to find habitations in the city. Moreover, 
at the point where land might begin to be far enough 
removed from the heart of the city for people of not quite 
unlimited means to live, there comes Central Park, taking 
up about a quarter of the available space, and leaving only 
a little strip on either side. So the man who works in 
New York must either retreat even further north, and 
descend each day down the tongue of Manhattan Island 
to his work, or else he must get over one of the rivers into 
Long Island or New Jersey. 

If he chooses the first evil, he can either go north of 
the Harlem River and live in a house, or remain below it 
and live in a flat. The River is reached at Hundred and 
Fifty-fifth Street; all New York south of this is on Man- 
hattan Island. Though this is called an island it is really 
a peninsula; that is to say, the Harlem River is a com- 
paratively practicable stream. It is possible to run bridges 
over it, whereas the connection across the Hudson with 
New Jersey must at present be made entirely by ferries, 
231 



The Wayfarer in New York 

and that with Long Island very largely so. North of 
Manhattan Island the suburbs stretch away almost end- 
lessly. The eastern part of them is called the Annexed 
Districts. This is served by an extension of the Elevated 
Railroad and by the New York Central. The West 
side connects with the Elevated Railroad, which ends at 
Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, by the New York and 
Northern Railroad. And beyond the continuous Hne of 
houses from Battery Point, the southernmost limit of the 
city, to the northern suburbs, stretches town on town, 
village on village, almost endlessly, each sending in its 
daily contingent to the huge dollar-hunt of New York. 

Suppose you want to live nearer your work — say within 
half an hour or so — then you must live in a flat. Land 
is too scarce to allow a whole house south of the Harlem 
to any man far short of his million. Flats are of every 
kind and of every price. There are flats to which the work- 
ingman and junior clerk can aspire without presumption 
and flats which the millionaire need not despise. The 
cheapest run to about nineteen or twenty dollars a month. 
This means nearly 50 pounds a year, which seems a back- 
breaking rent for the most prosperous mechanic to pay. 
For this he will get four rooms, a kitchen with gas-range 
and hot water laid on from the basement, a bedroom, a 
dining room, and a parlor. The rooms are very small, 
they generally look out at a dark courtyard, and often 
there is only one front door and a common hall — say, 
rather, a narrow passage — between two of them. Your 
neighbor may be an Italian costermonger or a Polish- 
Jewish vender of old clothes. In any case he is almost sure 
to be noisy, while the court will be filled with clothes dry- 
ing and the smell of every savory kind of cooking in the 
232 



The Bronx and Beyond 

world. In summer, court and staircase, front steps and 
streets, will swarm with squalling children. Yet, take it 
all round, there are advantages which no mechanic in 
England is likely to find. The sanitary, heating, and 
lighting arrangements are better, the stairs and halls are 
carpeted, the whole place is decorated, not magnificently 
but at least with an attempt at grace and comfort. The 
Englishman will often be more comfortable, but he will 
hardly find a dwelling with such an air of social self-respect 
— at any rate, while it is new and unoccupied. You will 
answer that the English mechanic would never dream of 
paying 50 pounds a year in rent. Probably not. But then 
the New York mechanic can afford it out of his wages, 
and the Englishman cannot. To the under-clerk such flats 
as these offer themselves as a cheap and handy abode. 
In New York there is none of the foolish convention that 
compels the clerk with a pound a week to live in a more 
expensive house than the workingman with two. This 
is no doubt a blessing, but it has its reverse side. If the 
carpet and the gilt decorations stimulate social self-respect 
in the workingman, the cabbage-water and the brats on 
the doorstep tend to destroy it in the clerk. 

Moving upwards, you can get for eighty dollars a-month, 
or nearly 200 pounds a-year, very much the same sort of 
flat in the same sort of quarter as you could get for half 
the money in London. By a curious exception to the usual 
excellence of American house-fittings, some of these are 
being built without either lift or electric light, though 
all have hot water laid on from below. From the eighty- 
dollar flat you can advance with your income — or without 
it if you like — to almost any price. I have seen an apart- 
ment at 480 pounds a year, and one at 520 pounds. In 
233 



The Wayfarer in New York 

London you would expect a palace for the money; in New 
York you can get certainly a most commodious and charm- 
ing flat, but still an unmistakable flat. The 480-pounder 
was as conveniently arranged and fitted and as elegantly 
decorated as any flat could well be. Yet, all said and done, 
it contained only eight rooms, and those neither very large 
nor very lofty. 

G. W. Steevens in The Land of the Dollar 

Spuyten Duyvel and King's Bridge ^^^ ^:> 

' I ^HE Spuyten Duyvel is a little stream, but it would 
-*■ take us a long while to traverse it were we to lin- 
ger, as we might, at all its points of attraction : the prettily 
wooded points here, the rocky shores there, and the 
vistas of valley-stretch, ending in villa or castle-crowned 
heights, revealed at every unexpected turn. The origin 
of the eccentric name of this capricious little river, meaning 
"in spite of the devil," is authentically determined by the 
veracious Diedrick Knickerbocker in his story of the 
** Doleful Disaster of Antony the Trumpeter" — wherein 
we read that the said Antony, of the family of Van Corlear, 
arriving one stormy night at the banks of the creek, urgently 
bound on an errand of his master, Peter Stuyvesant, under- 
took to swim across it, and swore roundly to do so, even 
"en spyt den duivel!" An eye-witness of the rash act is 
said to have testified to having seen the irritable personage 
thus daringly invoked seize poor Antony by the leg, and 
drag him under the angry floods; which testimony the 
supposed victim never reappeared to contradict. On the 
contrary, certain superstitious folk, it is asserted, profess 
yet occasionally to see his ghost haunting the fatal spot, 
and to hear his sonorous and soul-stirring trumpet mingling 
234 



The Bronx and Beyond 

in the rush and roar of tempest winds. At the mouth of 
the Spuyten Duyvei, where it is crossed by the railway upon 
the banks of the Hudson, we pass the old revolutionary 
site of Cockhill Fort, which stood upon the bluff on the 
city side, and that of Fort Independence, once its vis-a-vis, 
on the opposite point. Another equally pleasant and much 
older reminiscence of the mouth of the Spuyten Duyvei is 
that of the attack made here by the Indians upon Hendrick 
Hudson while he was passing the spot, in his voyage of 
discovery, in 1609. Many of the first settlers of Manhattan 
were desirous, it is said, to plant their city of New Amster- 
dam upon the banks of the Spuyten Duyvei instead of 
upon the other end of the island. Could they now revisit 
the scene, they would see their preference virtually realized, 
after all, in the expansion of the metropolis from the one 
point to the other. 

King's Bridge is a venerable and historic little structure, 
spanning the narrow and shallow meeting of the waters 
of the Harlem and the Spuyten Duyvei. A century ago 
it was the only link between the Island of Manhattan and 
the mainland. The troops of both armies crossed and 
recrossed it at the time of the Revolution, when it was the 
theater of many stirring and memorable events. Anxious 
sentinels then guarded its approaches; armed hosts were 
encamped around it ; and frowning fortresses looked down 
upon it from all the surrounding heights. Villas and 
chateaux have taken the places of the forts ; fertile meadows 
and gardens occupy the camp-grounds; the sentry-boxes 
are replaced with oyster and beer shanties and dashing 
equipages traverse it on their way from fashiondom to 
the rural haunts of the vicinage. 

T. Addison Richards in Harper's Magazine 
23s 



The Wayfarer in New York 

A Day at Laguerre's ^^> ^^ ^o <^ 

TT is the most delightful of French inns, in the quaintest 
■*■ of French settlements. As you rush by in one of the in- 
numerable trains that pass it daily, you may catch glimpses 
of tall trees trailing their branches in the still stream, 
— hardly a dozen yards wide, — of flocks of white ducks 
paddling together, and of queer punts drawn up on the 
shelving shore or tied to soggy, patched-up landing stairs. 

If the sun shines, you can see, now and then, between 
the trees, a figure kneeling at the water's edge, bending 
over a pile of clothes, washing — her head bound with 
a red handkerchief. 

If you are quick, the miniature river will open just before 
you round the curve, disclosing in the distance groups of 
willows, and a rickety foot-bridge perched up on poles to 
keep it dry. All this you see in a flash. 

But you must stop at the old-fashioned station, within 
ten minutes of the Harlem River, cross the road, skirt an old 
garden bound with a fence and bursting with flowers, and 
so pass on through a bare field to the water's edge, before 
you catch sight of the cosy little houses lining the banks, 
with garden fences cutting into the water, the arbors covered 
with tangled vines and the boats crossing back and forth. 

I have a love for the out-of-the-way places of the earth 
when they bristle all over with the quaint and the old and 
the odd, and are mouldy with the picturesque. But here 
is an in-the-way place, all sunshine and shimmer, with 
never a fringe of mould upon it, and yet you lose your heart 
at a glance. It is as charming in its boat life as an old 
Holland canal; it is as delightful in its shore Hfe as the 
Seine ; and it is as picturesque and entrancing in its sylvan 
beauty as the most exquisite of English streams. 
236 



The Bronx and Beyond 

The thousands of workaday souls who pass this spot 
daily in their whirl out and in the great city may catch all 
these glimpses of shade and sunlight over the edges of their 
journals, and any one of them living near the city's centre, 
with a stout pair of legs in his knickerbockers and the breath 
of the morning in his heart, can reach it afoot any day before 
breakfast; and yet not one in a hundred knows that this 
ideal nook exists. 

Even this small percentage would be apt to tell of the 
delights of Devonshire and of the charm of the upper 
Thames, with its tall rushes and low-thatched houses and 
quaint bridges, as if the picturesque ended there; forget- 
ting that here right at home there wanders many a stream 
with its breast all silver that the trees courtesy to as it sings 
through meadows waist-high in lush grass, — as exquisite 
a picture as can be found this beautiful land over. 

So, this being an old tramping-ground of mine, I have 
left the station with its noise and dust behind me this 
lovely morning in June, have stopped long enough to twist 
a bunch of sweet peas through the garden fence, and am 
standing on the bank waiting for some sign of life at Madam 
Laguerre's. I discover that there is no boat on my side 
of the stream. But that is of no moment. On the other 
side, within a biscuit's toss, so narrow is it, there are two 
boats ; and on the landing-wharf, which is only a few planks 
wide, supporting a tumble-down flight of steps leading to 
a vine-covered terrace above, rest the oars. . . . 

As there is only the great bridge above, which helps the 
country road across the little stream, and the little foot- 
bridge below, and as there is no path or road, — all the 
houses fronting the water, — the Bronx here is really the 
only highway, and so everybody must needs keep a boat. 
237 



The Wayfarer In New York 

This is why the stream is crowded in the warm afternoons 
with all sorts of water crafts loaded with whole families, 
even to the babies, taking the air, or crossing from bank 
to bank in their daily pursuits. 

There is a quality which one never sees in nature until 
she has been rough-handled by man and has outlived the 
usage. It is the picturesque. In the deep recesses of the 
primeval forest, along the mountain slope, and away up 
the tumbling brook, nature may be majestic, beautiful 
and even sublime; but she is never picturesque. This 
quality comes only after the axe and the saw have let the 
sunlight into the dense tangle and have scattered the falling 
timber, or the round of the water-wheel has divided the 
rush of the brook. It is so here. Some hundred years 
ago, along this quiet, silvery stream were encamped the 
troops of the struggling colonies, and, later, the great estates 
of the survivors stretched on each side for miles. The 
willows that now fringe these banks were saplings then; 
and they and the great butternuts were only spared be- 
cause their arching limbs shaded the cattle knee-deep along 
the shelving banks. 

Then came the long interval that succeeds that deadly 
conversion of the once sweet farming lands, redolent with 
clover, into that barren waste — suburban property. 
The conflict that had lasted since the days when the pioneer's 
axe first rang through the stillness of the forest was nearly 
over; nature saw her chance, took courage, and began that 
regeneration which is exclusively her own. The weeds 
ran riot ; tall grasses shot up into the sunlight, concealing 
the once well-trimmed banks; and great tangles of under- 
brush and alders made lusty efforts to hide the traces of a 
man's unceasing cruelty. Lastly came this little group 
238 



The Bronx and Beyond 

of poor people from the Seine and the Marne and lent a 
helping hand, bringing with them something of their old 
life at home, — their boats, rude landings, patched-up 
water-stairs, fences, arbors, and vine-covered cottages, — 
unconsciously completing the picture and adding the one 
thing needful — a human touch. So nature, having out- 
lived the wrongs of a hundred years, has here with busy 
fingers so woven a web of weed, moss, trailing vine, and 
low-branching tree that there is seen a newer and more 
entrancing quality in her beauty, which, for want of a better 
term, we call the picturesque. . . . 

For half a mile down-stream there is barely a current. 
Then comes a break of a dozen yards just below the perched- 
up bridge, and the stream divides, one part rushing like 
a mill-race, and the other spreading itself softly around the 
roots of leaning willows, oozing through beds of water- 
plants, and creeping under masses of wild grapes and under- 
brush. Below this is a broad pasture fringed with another 
and larger growth of willows. Here the weeds are breast- 
high, and in early autumn they burst into purple asters, 
and white immortelles, and goldenrod, and flaming sumac. 

If a painter had a lifetime to spare, and loved this sort 
of material, — the willows, hillsides, and winding stream, 
— he would grow old and weary before he could paint it all, 
and yet no two of his compositions need be alike. I have 
tied my boat under these same willows for ten years back, 
and I have not yet exhausted one corner of this neglected 
pasture. 
F. HoPKiNSON Smith in A Day at Laguerre's, and Other 

Days 
Copyright, i8g2, by F. Hopkinson Smith 

Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Company 
239 



The Wayfarer in New York 

The New York Zoological Park ^Cy ^::> <^ 

[This park is now practically complete, housing over 5500 
animals, fully a thousand more than any similar institution, 
in buildings and grounds equally surpassing.] 

nPHESE ideal grounds consist of five great ridges of 
-*■ granite running north and south, four of which are 
broken squarely across to form the basin of Lake Agassiz 
and Cope Lake. Through the easternmost valley the 
Bronx River finds its way to the Sound, broadening out, 
as it passes through our park, into Bronx Lake. 

Through the next valley westward runs the old Boston 
Post Road, now a finely improved park drive, always 
open to carriages. Next comes Rocking Stone Hill, with 
its bald crown of pink granite, against one side of which 
the Bear Dens have been lodged. Directly north of this 
conspicuous landmark, in the deep, cool shade of Beaver 
Valley, lies the Beaver Pond, as wild and secluded a spot 
as ever the shyest beaver of Wyoming could reasonably 
demand. This is the heart of the forest; and below it is 
a beautiful grove of beeches, birches, hickories, oaks, and 
maples, where the rich, moist earth is thickly set with 
spring-beauties, violets, and other forest flowers. 

Next westward beyond the Bear Dens is a broad ridge, 
open and sunny towards the south (for the rodents), but 
everywhere north of the Reptile House it is beautifully 
overgrown with huge oaks, tulips, and hickories. Beyond 
Beaver Valley it rises into a high, flat-topped knoll, on 
which the children's playground is situated. West of the 
Reptile House and beyond the Aquatic Mammals' Pond, 
the fourth ridge stretches a long, sheltering arm of rocks and 
trees quite to the southern boundary of the park ; and along 
the eastern side of this natural barrier against cold west winds 
240 



The Bronx and Beyond 

will shortly nestle the aviaries for eagles and vultures, pheas- 
ants and up-land game-birds. Farther north this ridge 
broadens into a plateau, on which, in 1901, will rise the Lion 
House and the Monkey House, and a little later the large Bird 
House and the Elephant House. This plateau has been 
named Baird Court, in honor of Professor Spencer F. 
Baird, former secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 
At its foot lies Lake Agassiz (to be devoted to a large mixed 
collection of water-fowl), beyond which, overlooking all, 
rises the smooth slope of Audubon Hill, crowned with 
granite rocks in a setting of dark -green cedars. 

William T. Hornaday 
Century Magazine, November, 1900 

The Bowery Boy as Nurse in Westchester ^;> -^>y 
" "IT TELL, I was out on de lawn tellin de gardner how t' 
* * cut de grass, and dat he said was a big bluff, 
cause I never seen no grass only what grows in City Hall 
Park till last year. We was jollyin like dat when I hears 
little Miss Fannie set up a yell what dey must have heard 
on de yachts out on de sound. I went over t' de ver- 
andy where de kid was lyin on a pillow in de hammock, 
and she had turned over on her face and couldn't come 
right. De nurse was off havin a small chat wid de butler 
which I'll take a fall outter some old day, so I tinks 'what 
t' 'ell,' I tinks, cause de Duchess had told me never t' 
take de kid up for fear of breakin it. 

"Say, do you know what I done? I says t' de kid, says 
I, 'Little Miss Fannie,' I says, 'you is down, but not out, 
and is entitled t' de benefit of de rule.' See ? So I counted 
off ten seconds, but de kid couldn't get up, and so den I 
picks her up, and she looks at me like she was sayin, ' Well, 

R 241 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Chames, you has some sense,' but she was so mad at de 
nurse she kept right on spoiHn her disposition; bawHn 
like her grip had got stranded in de cable and she couldn't 
let go. 

"Say, I was more crazy, cause I was tinkin about what 
de Duchess had warned me, and I didn't know but dat I'd 
fetched something loose in de kid's kit, and it might go off 
its feed, and den Miss Fannie would have a fit ; and only 
dat de gardner was lookin at me and sayin, *I guess, 
Chames, you learned t' be a nurse where you learned to 
cut grass ' ; only for dat I'd trun little Miss Fannie in de 
hammock and chased after de nurse. 

*'So I says t' de gardner, says I: 'Where I came from 
folks learns all sorts of tings,' I says, 'even t' not talkin too 
much,' says I, and I gives de kid a toss in me two arms, 
like dey was a cradle, and I starts singin to it. Say, you 
never heard me chant, did you? Well, dere ain't many 
in it wid me on or off de Bowry when it comes t' singin. 
Why, de very minute I pipes up, little Miss Fannie shuts her 
face and looks at me, sprised like, at first, and den she starts 
t' laughin as hard as his Whiskers when he tells a story 
after his second bot. Dis is de song I sung, and it goes wid 
any old Irish tune: 

"Wan marnin early Oi arose 
And Oi put on me vvorkin close, 
And phare in th' wurruld d'ye think Oi goes? 
Up ! up ! up ! up ! t' Wan Hoondred and Ninety-sixth street. 

" Dthe spheedway thrack dthey're buildin dthere, 
But all us terriers live afar 
From Cherry Hill, wid divil a car — 
Up ! up ! up ! up ! t' Wan Hoondred and Ninety-sixth street. 

"It's dthere yez work wid pick and drill; 
And tdhere wid work yez get yer fill; 
242 



The Bronx and Beyond 

And dthere wid work yer toim yez fill — 

Up ! up ! up ! up ! t' Wan Hoondred and Ninety-sixth street. 

" Shure, whin our daily work is o'er, 
Bedad, our bones is tired and sore, 
And we'll be glad to tramp no more 
Up ! up ! up ! up ! t' Wan Hoondred and Ninety-sixth street. 

''Say, I made a hit dat time if I never did before in me life. 
Little Miss Fannie wouldn't let me stop till I'd sung dat song 
near a million times; me walkin up and down de verandy 
wid her all de time till I was so hot I had a tirst on me like 
a man what had been runnin a lawnmower in de sun all day. 
I was just tinkin dat me arms would drop ofif in anodder 
minute if de kid didn't go t' sleep, when she shut her eyes, 
and dat minute Miss Fannie and de Duchess drove into de 
gate. ... So dat night Miss Fannie told all de folks 
at dinner what a lulu I was, and his Whiskers, he says, 
'Chames,' says he, 'you has done yourself so proud dat 
I tink you is due on a day off, and to-morrow you can go 
t' de city and look at a bull pup I has my eye on,' he says." 
E. W. TowNSEND in Chimmie Fadden and Little 
Miss Fannie 



\y 



Their Wedding Journey — 1834 o ^^ 

kEAR MOTHER, 

When the Coach rolled off 
From dear old Battery Place 
I hid my face within my hands — 

That is, I hid my face. 
Tom says (he's leaning over me !) 

'Twas on his shoulder, too; 
But, oh, I pray you will believe 
I wept to part from You. 
243 



The Wayfarer in New York 

And when we rattled up Broadway 

I wept to leave the Scene 
Familiar to my happy Youth 

(I did love Bowling Green). 
I wept at Slidell's Chandlery 

To see the smoke arise — 
CTwas only at the City Hall 

Tom bade me wipe my Eyes.) 
******* 
We have not gone to Uncle John's, 

Though Yonkers is so near — 
We never shall see Cousin Van 

At Tarrytown, I fear. 
Our Peekskill friends, the Fishkill folk, 

And all the waiting rest — 
Tom bids me tell you they may wait — 

(He says they may be blest). 

I know 'tis ill to linger here 

Hid in this woodland Inn 
When all along Queen Anne's broad road 

Await our Friends and Kin; 
But, dear Mama (when I was small 

You let me call you so), 
'Tis such Felicity and Joy 

With Him, Here! Do you know? 

YOUR ISABEL. 
P. S. — Tom sends 

His love. Please write, "I know." 

H. C. BUNNER 

Copyright, i8q6, 

by Charles Scrihne/s Sons 
244 



X 

OVER THE WATER 



Singularly enough there is in New York a superficial like- 
ness to Constantinople. Even the height and location of the 
ground with the contours cut by the rivers are not dissimilar, 
A glance at the map will show the Hudson corresponding to 
the Marmora, the East River to the Golden Horn, the Upper 
Bay to the Bosporus. Other resemblances derive naturally 
from these. Manhattan becomes recognizable as Stamboul, 
the Battery as Seraglio Point, Brooklyn as the heights of Pera, 
Staten Island as Scutari. Even the Brooklyn Bridge can be 
tortured into a resemblance to the Galata Bridge, and the 
Williamsburgh Bridge is an exaggerated suggestion of the 
upper bridge on the Golden Horn. 

J. C. V. D. 



OVER THE WATER 

The Bridges and BlackwelPs Island '^^ ''^ 

' I ^HE earliest one, the Brooklyn Bridge, was opened for 
-"- traffic in 1883, and since then upwards of fifty million 
people a year have continuously passed over it in cars 
alone. It is one of the most famous of the suspension 
bridges, with stone towers 272 feet in height, a central 
span of 1595 feet, and a lift above the water of 135 feet. 
Its total length is 5959 feet, something over a mile. It has 
promenades for foot passengers, two roadways for vehicles, 
and two railway tracks for electric cars. 

Enormous as this bridge was when first built, and spectac- 
ular as it still appears, it is outdone in size by the Williams- 
burgh Bridge, sometimes called ''Bridge No. 2." This is 
another suspension affair, but of quite a different appear- 
ance from the first bridge. It has steel towers 325 feet in 
height, a central span of 1600 feet, and a total length of 
7200 feet. Since its opening it has carried immense crowds. 
When the cars for it are in running order they will trans- 
port 200,000 people a day and in emergencies 125,000 
people an hour. In its 118 feet of width it has four sur- 
face railway tracks, two elevated tracks, two carriage ways, 
two promenades, and two bicycle paths. 

Yet this bridge is once more surpassed in size by the 
Queensboro or Blackwell's Island Bridge. It is a canti- 
lever of peculiar design and is regarded as an experiment 
247 



The Wayfarer in New York 

by some and as an unsafe structure by others. It has four 
trolley tracks, two elevated railway tracks, besides foot- 
paths and carriage ways, and its capacity is 125,000 
passengers an hour. It crosses the East River between 
Fifty-ninth Street and Long Island City in three spans, 
resting on Blackwell's Island after the first one, and making 
a short span across the island itself. There are six rather 
fine masonry piers, two on the island and two on each river 
bank. The total reach of the bridge is 7636 feet. The 
distinction of being the largest cantilever in the world 
(the Forth Bridge has a longer single span) is perhaps 
needed to sustain an interest, for it certainly is not beautiful. 
It seems cumbrous and unnecessarily heavy. 

In sheer weight, however, as in carrying capacity, this 
Queensboro cantilever is exceeded by "Bridge No. 3," 
or the Manhattan Bridge, now nearly completed. It is 
between the Brooklyn and the WilHamsburgh bridges, and 
like them is suspended on enormous ropes of steel. Each 
rope consists of 9472 wires, rt of an inch in diameter, 
woven into thirty-seven strands, with an outside diameter 
of 2ii inches. These cables are swung from steel towers 
standing upon granite and concrete foundations that go 
down to bed-rock 100 feet below the mean surface of the 
water. The towers are 345 feet in height, the steel in each 
of them weighs some 6250 tons, and each carries a load of 
32,000 tons. The anchorage on either shore to which the 
ends of the cables are made fast is another mass of granite 
and concrete, weighing something like 232,000 tons. It 
is calculated to resist a pull of, say, 30,000 tons. From 
the main cables, carried by smaller suspender cables, is 
the superstructure, which in weight of nickel-steel, includ- 
ing the towers, amounts to 42,000 tons. In the main span 
248 



Over the Water 

over the river there is 10,000 tons, and in each shore span 
5000 tons. 

These figures suggest a bridge of not only great weight, 
but of huge size. It is planned to be the strongest and 
possibly the longest bridge in the world. And this not 
because New York wants to have the "biggest" structure 
in all creation, paying ten or more millions for that pre- 
tentious distinction, but because it needs a bridge that will 
carry from 300,000 to 500,000 people a day, and carry 
most of them during the "rush" hours. It is built to stand 
great strain and to accommodate any crowd, however large. 
To that end there are to be four tracks for elevated and 
subway cars, accommodating trains of eight and ten cars 
each, four more tracks for trolleys and surface cars on a 
second floor, besides a roadway thirty-five feet wide and 
two twelve-foot sidewalks for pedestrians. The main 
span of the bridge is not so long as those of the Brooklyn 
and Williamsburgh bridges, being 1470 feet to their 1600; 
but the approach from the Manhattan side is 1940 feet 
and from the Brooklyn side 4230 feet. This makes a 
total length of 9090 feet, nearly two miles. That figure, 
taken in connection with its width of 120 feet (35 feet 
wider than the Brooklyn Bridge), gives perhaps some idea 
of this stupendous structure of steel swung across the East 
River as easily and as lightly as a spider's web across a 
doorway. 

For, notwithstanding its weight and mass, this bridge 
does not look heavy. Apparently it has no rigidity about 
it. It looks as though it might ride out a storm by bending 
before it or swaying with it. Its grace and its feeling of 
elasticity come from its fine bending lines. The city 
planned for the beauty of the structure as well as for its 
249 



The Wayfarer in New York 

usefulness. Mr. Hastings, the architect, has personally 
had its decoration on his hands and conscience for a long 
time. No doubt this has meant much in matters of detail. 
The main beauty of the bridge, however, lies in its lines — 
the graceful droop of its cables over its upright towers. 

The Brooklyn Bridge also has this grace of line and 
delicate tracery against the sky. The towers are well- 
proportioned masses of masonry, but when built they 
were denounced by many for their pike-staff plainness. 
They were thought ''ugly" because not ornamented with 
mouldings, or divided up by string courses of protruding 
stone. In fact, the whole bridge was considered some- 
thing of a monstrosity, and spoken of at that time very 
much as our skyscrapers are scoffed at to-day. But, 
fortunately, the bridge has existed long enough to win over 
many of those who thought it monstrous; and the newer 
generation has come to regard it as one of the city's most 
beautiful features. It has grown gray in service, having 
been used twenty -five years; and is now spoken of as 
"the old Bridge." Perhaps some of its attractiveness 
has come with age, and then, perhaps again, it was just 
as beautiful the day it was completed, and we have merely 
grown up to it. 

The islands where the city institutions are located are 
in summer the coolest and the greenest spots in the city, 
and at any season they are beautiful in their settings. 
All of which puts the notion into one's head that the city 
has given up to its crippled and aged, its thugs and thieves, 
its paupers and prisoners, the most livable and lovable 
portions of the town, keeping for itself only some flat and 
rather hot districts on the upper avenues. This looks 
like a great deal of self-denial in favor of the outcast; but, 
250 



Over the Water 

unfortunately, the motive will not bear critical analysis. 
It is to be feared that the New Yorkers put the prisoners 
and the paupers on the islands because no one else wanted 
those spots. They were waste places that could be spared 
very readily; and besides, over there "the slovenly un- 
handsome corse" could not come betwixt the wind and 
the nobility. People do not want their public institutions 
too close to them. 

As for islands near a city, they have never been popular 
resorts, except for picnic parties. Humanity of the hermit 
variety occasionally exists upon them; but the true city- 
dweller is a person of gregarious tastes and loves to flock 
along a dusty street rather than a water front. Moreover, 
the islands are inaccessible, hard to come and go from, and, 
also, they are "dreadfully lonely." But they are good 
healthful places for the indigent and the aged, and admirable 
spots in which to bring sinners to repentance. Hence their 
appropriateness for prisons and hospitals. Let the blind 
and the halt have them. So long as the free citizen can 
smell gasolene and see asphalt on Fifth Avenue, he will 
not miss the sea breezes and green grass of the islands. 

J. C. Van Dyke in The New New York 

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry ^;> '<;> -^^ ^«;^. 

I 

"PLOOD-TIDE below me ! I see you face to face ! 
^ Clouds of the west-sun there half an hour high — 

I see you also face to face. 
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, 

how curious you are to me! 
251 



The Wayfarer in New York 

On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, 

returning home, are more curious to me than you 

suppose, 
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence 

are more to me, and more in my meditations, than 

you might suppose. 

:): H« H< ^ ^ iN ^ 

I too many and many a time cross' d the river of old. 
Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the 

air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their 

bodies. 
Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies 

and left the rest in strong shadow, 
Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward 

the south. 
Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water. 
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams, 
Look'd at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the 

shape of my head in the sunlit water, 
Look'd on the haze on the hills southward and south- 
westward, 
Look'd on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet, 
Look'd toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving. 
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me. 
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships 

at anchor. 
The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars, 

n 

The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the 
slender serpentine pennants, 
252 



Over the Water 

The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their 

pilot-houses, 
The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous 

whirl of the wheels, 
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset, 
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, 

the frolicsome crests and ghstening. 
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray 

walls of the granite storehouses by the docks, 
On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely 

flank'd on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the 

belated lighter. 
On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chim- 
neys burning high and glaringly into the night. 
Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and 

yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into 

the clefts of streets. 

Flow on, river ! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the 
ebb-tide ! 

Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves! 

Gorgeous clouds of the sunset ! drench with your splendor 
me, or the men and women generations after me ! 

Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passen- 
gers! 

Stand up, tall masts of Manahatta! stand up, beautiful 
hills of Brooklyn! 

Throb, baffled and curious brain ! throw out questions and 
answers ! 

Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution ! 

Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or 
public assembly! 

253 



The Wayfarer in New York 

Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically 

call me by my nighest name ! 
Live, old life ! play the part that looks back on the actor 

or actress! 
Play the old role, the role that is great or small according 

as one makes it! 
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in un- 
known ways be looking upon you; 
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, 

yet haste with the hasting current; 
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles 

high in the air; 
Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold 

it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you I 
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or 

any one's head, in the sunlit water! 
Come on, ships from the lower bay ! pass up or down. 

white-sail'd schooners, sloops, lighters! 

Walt Whitman 

Flushing 'Cv <:^ •'v^ -^^^y ^^i^ 'Oy 

'T*HE Bowne place in Flushing, a very old type of 
-*• Long Island farm-house, was turned into a mu- 
seum by the Bowne family itself — an excellent idea; — 
the Quaker meeting-house in Flushing, though not so 
old by twenty-five years as it is painted in the sign which 
says, "Built in 1695," will probably be preserved as a 
museum too. 

Another relic in that locality well worth keeping is the 

Duryea place, a striking old stone farm-house with a wide 

window on the second floor, now shut in with a wooden 

cover supported by a long brace pole reaching to the ground. 

254 



Over the Water 

Out of this window, it is said, a cannon used to point. 
This was while the house was headquarters for Hessian 
officers during the long monotonous months when *'the 
main army of the British lay at Flushing from Whitestone 
to Jamaica"; and upon Flushing Heights there stood one 
of the tar barrel beacons that reached from New York 
to Norwich Hill near Oyster Bay. The British officers 
used to kill time by playing at Fives against the blank wall 
of the Quaker meeting-house, or by riding over to Hemp- 
stead Plains to the fox hunts — where the Meadowbrook 
Hunt Club rides to the hounds to-day. The common 
soldiers meanwhile stayed in Flushing and amused them- 
selves according to the same historian by rolling cannon 
balls about a course of nine holes. That was probably 
the nearest approach to the great game at that time in 
America and may well have been played on the site of 
the present Flushing Golf Club. 

Jesse L. Williams in New York Sketches 
Copyright, igo2, by Charles Scrihner^s Sons 

The City of Homes <;:> ^^ ^;> "^ <:> 

IN the general outline Brooklyn is a great fan. The big 
bridge is the handle ; and starting at the other side she 
spreads in every direction. If she were built long and 
narrow like Manhattan she would reach out half the 
length of Long Island, but rounded as she is every part of 
the borough is within an hour's ride of the Manhattan end 
of the bridge, and it costs only five cents to get there. No 
part of its immense suburbs has a monopoly of growth. 
It is general. It is not so very long ago that Flatbush 
seemed a long way from New York. The man who went 
to Flatbush to live moved out into the country. To-day 
255 



The Wayfarer in New York 

the property of a single family over there — the John 
Lefferts estate — has already been changed from farmland 
into a populous city in itself. It has been built up with 
residences such as line the Hudson above New York. 
Quaint old houses, dating from the days of the Dutch, in 
which great oak beams are made fast with inch-thick oak 
pins in the scarcity of hand-made nails, are being pulled 
down to give room to Queen Anne cottages or whatever 
is the current architectural Brummagem. 

Start in the trolley car from the bridge and go out toward 
New Utrecht and where Fort Hamilton holds the entrance 
to the Narrows and the story is the same. Build, build, 
build, not the summer towns which have been there for nearly 
a hundred years, but populous towns of all-the-year-round 
homes, moving from the over-peopled tenements of Man- 
hattan to the freedom of yards for the children and fresh 
air for all — and the drained tenements are filled again 
from Latin Europe and the land of the Slav. 

Let any one who doubts go trace the fronds of Brooklyn 
Fan — or he need go no farther than Brooklyn's business 
district. He will see the streets and the stores crowded 
with women. If he counts he will find nearly fifty women 
to one man. It is the Borough of Homes, and the women 
own it. Anonymous 

Coney Island -q> ^> -;> <:^ ^;::y 

THERE is not now, and never has been in the world 
or its history, a pleasure resort approaching Coney 
Island in the elaborateness or ingenuity of its devices to 
wheedle away dimes and despondency. 

The name of Coney Island has been for years a byword 
of plebeiance at its worst. Side-shows in wooden shacks, 
256 



Over the Water 

peanuts and popcorn, rag-throated barkers, hot babies 
spilling out of tired arms, petty swindles, puerile diversions, 
a wooden elephant, a Ferris wheel, an observation tower, 
hot sands, squalling children, bathers indecently fat or 
inhumanly lean shrieking in a crowded and dirty ocean, 
sweaty citizens, pick-pockets picking empty pockets, 
lung-testers, noisome bicyclists, merry-go-rounds, weight- 
pounding machines, punching machines, "one-baby-down- 
one-cigar ! " — ring throwing at ugly canes, ball throwing 
at coons, "guess-your-weight!" — tintype tents, dusty 
clam chowder served by toughs in maculate aprons, rel- 
iques of old picnics, a captive balloon, squalling babies 
covered with prickly heat, drooling sots and boozy women 
with their hair in strings, a board walk fetid with sweaty 
citizens, museums with snake-charmers who could charm 
nothing else, pretzels, %-haunted pyramids of mucilagi- 
nous pies, shrieking babies with pins sticking in them, 
spanked by weary mothers and sworn at by jaded fathers, 
lemonade where overfed flies commit suicide, only to be dis- 
interred by unmanicured thumbs, nigrescent bananas, heel- 
marked orange peelings, fractured chicken bones, shooting 
galleries snapping and banging and smelly powder, saloons 
odious with old beer slops and inebriates, umbrellas on 
the sand where gap-toothed bicyclists grin at fat beauties of 
enormous hip, little girls and boys with bony legs all hives 
and scratches paddling in the surf-lather with dripping 
drawers and fife-like shrieks, gaily bedight nymphs proud 
of their shapes and dawdling about in wet bathing suits 
that keep no secrets, poor little mewling babies that really 
need to go home, dance halls where flat-headed youths 
and women with plackets agape spiel slowly in a death- 
clutch, German bands whose music sounds like horses 
s 257 



The Wayfarer in New York 

with the heaves, the steeplechase, where men and women 
straddle the same hobby horse and sHde yelHng down the 
ringing grooves of small change, rancid sandwiches, sticky 
candies made of adulterated sweets and dye, more clam 
chowder, banging bumping cars on creaking trestles filled 
with yowling couples, tangle-faced babies howling toward 
apoplexy, dusty shoes, obsolete linen, draggled skirts, sweat, 
fatigue, felicity, — that is the Coney Island of long memory. 

There were just two things about it that were worth 
while : first was the sense of delight it gave you to get back 
to New York; second, the shoot-the-chutes, where one 
felt the rapture of a seagull swooping to the waves — the 
long, swift glide down the wet incline, and the glorious 
splash into the flying spray ! — who would not rather 
be a gondolier on one of those flat boats than Admiral 
Makaroff , or the last flying machinist who spattered to the 
ground? 

But these were the two exceptions that proved Coney 
Island to be a nightmare of side-shows in wooden shacks, 
peanuts and popcorn, rag-throated barkers, hot babies 
spilling out of tired arms — da capo al fine. 

To-day, though! The paltry Aladdin has rubbed his 
lamp. Palaces have leapt aloft with gleaming minarets, 
lagoons are spread beneath arches of delight, the spoils of 
the world's revels are spilled along the beach, rendering 
dull and petty the stately pleasure dome that Kubla Khan 
decreed in Xanadu. 

One night in the winter there was a fire — a suspicious 
fire — for how could a fire be both accidental and benev- 
olent? But, anyway, in one crimson night the blood-red 
waves saw the plague spot cremated, all the evils and ugli- 
ness cleansed as on a pyre. The next morning the sun with 
258 



Over the Water 

smiling eye beheld acres of embers, charred timbers, ashes. 
Conty fuitl 

Then armies of carpenters and masons, engineers, 
electricians and decorators invaded Gomorrah. And this 
year's May found the old Coney Island metamorphosed, 
base metals transmuted into gold — or at least into gilt. 
Here is alchemy! here the palpable stone of philosophy! 
Henceforward London's Earl's Court is a churl's back- 
yard, the fetes of Versailles are nursery games, the Mardi 
Gras of New Orleans, the Veiled Prophet of St. Louis, 
the carnivals of Venice are sawdust and wax; as for the 
rare and amazing Durbar of India — that is an everyday 
affair here. 

Still, on the outskirts the old side-shows persist like 
parasites, and those who enjoy nothing until it is ancient 
history need not bewail the old Coney Island. It is simply 
shoved to one side. In its old abode there is super-regal 
splendor. Last year's Luna Park finds this year a rival, 
Dreamland, and the two exhausted the achievements of 
past and the ingenuities of present device as completely as 
their passionate press agents have squeezed dry the dic- 
tionary of flattering epithet. There is no adjective left 
that does not smell of advertisement. So nouns and nu- 
merals must coldly foreshow what now exists to inflate 
the mind and deflate the purse. 

Luna Park has waxed to the harvest fulness. It claims 
to be greater than the St. Louis Fair, illuminated beyond 
any spot on earth; it has reproduced the Court of Honor 
of the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition. 

It covers forty acres, twenty-four of them under shelter. 
Its broad sheet of water is not only swept by gondolas 
and punts, but it is over-topped by a three-ring circus sus- 
259 



The Wayfarer in New York 

pended over the waves. Here, in full view of thousands, 
in tiers of boxes and promenades, the spotted horses, the 
clowns, the acrobats, jugglers, hoop artists, intellectual 
elephants, Arabian pyramidists, tumblers, contortionists, 
disport under the crackling lashes of the ringmaster, with 
his long-tailed coat and his "Hoop-la!" From skyish 
towers wires hang, and hereon trapezists and men and women 
of remarkable equihbrium do the impossible a hundred 
and thirty feet above the waters that serve for a net. This 
circus employs the most famous athletes, yet is free to all 
who enter the grounds. 

A Japanese tea garden, built by imported Japanese 
architects and wood-carvers and florists, is rival to Yeddo. 
In the flower gardens thousands of tinted electric bulbs 
are hidden, to turn the night into noon. Babylonian 
gardens hang over all. 

Two high towers with suspended baskets will whirl the 
most phlegmatic giddy with centrifugal thrills. In the 
Helter-Skelter you may sit down on a polished and wind- 
ing slide and renew the delights of banister days. The 
famous trip to the Moon, with its convincing illusions, is still 
here, and you may go also, or think you go, twenty thou- 
sand leagues under the sea. Infant incubators, a scenic 
railway, a midnight express, a German village, an old mill, 
the sea on land, a monster dance hall, a laughing show, 
a shoot-the-chutes, are mere details. . . . 

The rival paradise. Dreamland, is said to have cost over 
$3,000,000. It has taken over the old Iron Pier and built 
above it the largest ball room ever made, 20,000 square 
feet ; beneath is the restaurant and a promenade, and be- 
neath all the cool rush of the surf. The company runs four 
large steamers, as well as Santos-Dumont's Airship No. 9. 
260 



Over the Water 

In Dreamland you find a street called "the Bowery with 
the lid off," the spectacular Fall of Pompeii, a haunted 
house, a reproduction of the Doge's Palace, a complete 
midget village inhabited by three hundred Lilliputians, a 
miniature railway, a double shoot-the-chutes, a coasting 
trip through Switzerland, a leapfrog railway, a camp and 
battle scene, a baby incubator plant, Bostock's Animal 
Show, the highest of observation towers, a funny-room from 
Paris called " C'est-a-rire," and, finally, the Chilkoot Pass, 
a great bagatelle board, where the sliders win a prize if they 
can steer themselves into certain crevasses in the glaciers. 
Besides there is a great fire-fighting scene, not to mention 
a theater where the best-known vaudevillians hold sway, 
and innumerable music. 

But Luna Park and Dreamland are not the only spectacles 
of Pantagruelian proportions. There are others that have" 
cost a hundred thousand dollars or more, such as the 
Johnstown Flood, in vivid reproduction, and the trip to 
the North Pole by way of a completely equipped submarine 
with an amazingly ingenious illusion of the sea floor and 
the Arctic realm. There is also a huge theater where a 
mimic New York is bombarded and destroyed by hostile 
fleets after a furious battle with the crumbling forts. 

Rupert Hughes in The Real New York 
Copyright, IQ04 

Staten Island ^o <:> ^Oy ^Qy -o 

TF the stranger would see New York in one of its 
-^ most charming aspects, or if the citizen would refresh 
his wearied soul with an hour's cheering communion with 
Nature in her heartiest and most inspiriting mood, let 
him hie to the happy retreats of Staten Island. Great 
261 



The Wayfarer in New York 

is the pleasure and small the cost of the journey, for — 
as may happily be said of each of the attractive points in 
the vicinage of the town — a poor little sixpence will buy 
it at any hour. 

One of the busiest places on the island is the thriving 
village of Tompkinsville opposite the Quarantine Ground, 
at the Narrows. Back of this village the ground rises boldly 
to an elevation of some three hundred feet, overlooking 
land and sea for miles around, and commanding, among 
other wonderful scenes, the view of the bay and city pre- 
sented in our frontispiece. Down in the foreground, at 
the left of the picture, is a glimpse of a portion of the town 
and of the site of the hospitals, which were offered as a 
holocaust to the popular indignation at the time of the 
memorable Quarantine rebellion, in the summer of 1857. 

Staten Island, or Staaten Eyiandt as the ancient Dutch 
settlers wrote the name, was known to the Indians under 
the euphonious appellation of Squehonga Manackmong. 
It forms a considerable and important part of the Empire 
State, extending some fourteen miles in length, and about 
eight miles at the point of its greatest breadth. Guarding 
as it does the great access to the city from the sea, it is, in 
a military point of view, a place of high consequence. So 
the British General, Sir William Howe, regarded it, when 
he established himself there, first of all, at the period of 
the American Revolution, keeping possession from 1776 
to the close of the contest. 

The island, lying as it does within half an hour's sail 
of the metropolis, and possessing great and varied topo- 
graphical advantages, has become a favorite resort for 
summer residence, and many are the stately chateaux 
and the cosey cottages which crown its beautiful heights or 
262 



Over the Water 

nestle in its peaceful glens. At the most northern point 
of the island, where it is separated from the New Jersey 
shore by the kills, as the little strait here is called, lies New 
Brighton — a winsome village of country seats, much es- 
teemed by the denizens of the city when the dog-star rages. 
New Brighton presents the pleasantest of faces to the water, 
and looks out upon a picture equally attractive in return. 

A little west of this village are the grounds of that famous 
charity for superannuated sons of the sea, known as the 
Sailor's Snug Harbor. This fortunate establishment 
was founded in 1801, by Captain Randall, and endowed 
by him with farmlands then far out of the city proper, and 
valued at the time at some fifty thousand dollars ; but which 
are at this day in the heart of the most densely populated 
and most valuable section of the metropolis, and are 
measured by inches instead of acres. 

T. Addison Richards in Harper's Magazine 

Hoboken, 1831 ^^ ^^::y ^:> ^^^ ^^> 

A T New York, as everywhere else, the churches 
^ show within, during the time of service, like beds of 
tulips, so gay, so bright, so beautiful, are the long rows 
of French bonnets and pretty faces; rows but rarely 
broken by the unribboned heads of the male population; 
the proportion is about the same as I have remarked else- 
where. Excepting at New York, I never saw the other 
side of the picture, but there I did. On the opposite side 
of the North River, about three miles higher up, is a place 
called Hoboken. A gentleman who possessed a handsome 
mansion and grounds there, also possessed the right of 
ferry; and to render this productive, he has restricted his 
pleasure-grounds to a few beautiful acres, laying out the 
263 



The Wayfarer in New York 

remainder simply and tastefully as a public walk. It is 
hardly possible to imagine one of greater attraction; a 
broad belt of light underwood and flowering shrubs, studded 
at intervals with lofty forest trees, runs for two miles along 
a cliff which overhangs the matchless Hudson; sometimes 
it feathers the rocks down to its very margin, and at others 
leaves a pebbly shore, just rude enough to break the gentle 
waves, and make a music which mimics softly the loud 
chorus of the ocean. Through this beautiful little wood 
a broad, well-gravelled terrace is led by every point which 
can exhibit the scenery to advantage ; narrower and wider 
paths diverge at intervals, some into the deeper shadow of 
the woods, and some shelving gradually to the pretty coves 
below. 

The price of entrance to this little Eden is the six cents 
you pay at the ferry. We went there on a bright Sunday 
afternoon, expressly to see the humors of the place. 
Many thousand persons were scattered through the grounds; 
of these we ascertained, by repeatedly counting, that nine- 
teen-twentieths were men. The ladies were at church. . . . 

It is impossible not to feel, after passing one Sunday in 
the churches and chapels of New York, and the next in the 
gardens of Hoboken, that the thousands of well-dressed 
men you see enjoying themselves at the latter, have made 
over the thousands of well-dressed women you saw ex- 
hibited at the former, into the hands of the priests, at 
least for the day. The American people arrogate to them- 
selves a character of superior morality and religion, but this 
division of their hours of leisure does not give me a favor- 
able idea of either. 

Mrs. Trollope in Domestic Manners of the 
Americans 

264 



Over the Water 

Greenpoint ^;:> ^q> ^;::> <;^ ^:> .<^^ 
TF any spot on the globe can be found where even Spring 
-*■ has lost the sweet trick of making herself charm- 
ing, a cynic in search of an opportunity for some 
such morose discovery might thank his baleful stars were 
chance to drift him upon Greenpoint. Whoever named 
the place in past days must have done so with a double 
satire; for Greenpoint is not a point, nor is it ever green. 
Years ago it began by being the sluggish suburb of a 
thriftier and smarter suburb, Brooklyn. By degrees the 
latter broadened into a huge city, and soon its neighbor 
village stretched out to it arms of straggling huts and 
swampy river-line, in doleful welcome. To-day the 
affiliation is complete. Man has said let it all be Brooklyn, 
and it is all Brooklyn. But the sovereign dreariness of 
Greenpoint, like an unpropitiated god, still remains. Its 
melancholy, its ugliness, its torpor, its neglect, all preserve 
an unimpaired novelty. It is very near New York, and 
yet in atmosphere, suggestion, vitality, it is leagues away. 
Our noble city, with its magnificent maritime approaches, 
its mast-thronged docks, its lordly encircling rivers, its 
majesty of traffic, its gallant avenues of edifices, its loud 
assertion of life, and its fine promise of riper culture, fades 
into a dim memory when you have touched, after only a 
brief voyage, upon this forlorn opposite shore. 

No Charon rows you across, though your short trip has 
too often the most funereal associations. You take passage 
in a squat little steamboat at either of two eastern ferries, 
and are lucky if a hearse with its satellite coaches should 
fail to embark in your company; for, curiously, the one 
enlivening fact associable with Greenpoint is its close 
nearness to a famed Roman Catholic cemetery. . . . 
265 



The Wayfarer in New York 

But Greenpoint, like a hardened conscience, still has her 
repentant surprises. She is not quite a thing of sloth and 
penury. True, the broad street that leads from steam- 
boat to cemetery is lined with squalid homes, and the 
mourners who are so incessantly borne along to Calvary 
must see little else than beer-sellers standing slippered and 
coatless beside their doorways, or thin, pinched women 
haggling with the venders of sickly groceries. But else- 
where one may find by-streets lined with low wooden 
dwellings that hint of neatness and suggest a better grade 
of living. A yellowish drab prevails as the hue of these 
houses; they seem all to partake of one period, like certain 
homogeneous fossils. But they do not breathe of antiquity; 
they are fanciful with trellised piazzas and other modern 
embellishments of carpentry; sometimes they possess minia- 
ture Corinthian pillars, faded by the trickle of rain between 
their tawny flutings, as if stirred with the dumb desire to 
be white and classic. Scant gardens front them, edged 
with a few yards of ornamental fence. High basement 
windows stare at you from a foundation of brick. They 
are very prosaic, chiefly from their lame effort to 
be picturesque; and when you look down toward 
the river, expecting to feel refreshed by its 
gleam, you are disheartened at the 
way in which lumber-yards and 
sloop-wharves have quite 
shut any glimpse of it 
from your eyes. 
Edgar Fawcett in 
An Ambitious Woman. 
Copyright, 1883, 
by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
266 



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By JOHN C. VAN DYKE 

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Some glimpse of what this new creation will be is afforded 
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